Travellers tales

Must admit that at first I thought the OP was another dig at the Daily Mail, or Fail as many like to call it. Reading it through I realise that you have a similar take on the subject as I do. I live in a place where there is a permanent camp fairly close. Just over the county border which gives the police the option of leaving the other force to sort out the frequent trouble and anti social goings on. Cannot say any more, seems to be against their human rights.

I can understand and also sympathise with this horrendous situation but " free speech " or not, we're not allowed to add our true thoughts on the subject so it goes on unchallenged.

There are those who will continue to say----" well they've got to go somewhere "! As long as it isn't in their back yards,eh ??

Strange how " free speech is selective ! Strange, that.

We had a success locally this week machinery was stolen from a farm and luckily the police helicopter was close by and it picked up the vehicle used by the thieves and tracked it to the local travelers camp.

The Riot Squad was called, broke in and recovered the stolen property, it’s not exactly a “no go area” but you do need about 10 armored coppers willing to fight their way in. Of course nobody was arrested because everyone had a solid alibi!.

I'd like to know what paid work they do and if they pay appropriate taxes.
If they can buy land for cash and drive new looking 4×4s plus Gucci shoes and expensive clothing, their income must come from somewhere so I wonder why don't HMRC investigate?

Travellers took over a supermarket car park near me, they tapped into their electricity, terrorised customers and staff and caused mayhem. The children were demanding the coins from the trolleys. They eventually left without all their rubbish.
It got me thinking that there were plenty of areas, common land etc where they could have pitched. Then the penny dropped! They blackmail the supermarkets, brewery’s etc to vacate the land.
The Police do nothing and local councils take so long to act it’s a joke.
These people are simply criminals.

"These people" are as diverse as any other group in society.

I worked for many years with Travellers and was happy to count many as friends. The decent Travellers despair as much as anyone else over the minority of Travellers that get themselves into the headlines for appalling behaviour. They are no better or worse on average than other UK citizens - they are just a visible minority who, when they misbehave or commit crime, find themselves all tarred with the same brush.

How would those of us with decent teenage grandsons feel if they were assumed to be young thugs, just because some are?

Travellers have a very strong sense of family loyalty and there is a huge Christian movement within the community that would not dream of behaving in such an ant-social way.

It is easy to criticise from the outside (remember how Jews were all Shylocks?) without actually knowing anything about them at all.

Clearly this behaviour from a minority of Travellers is entirely unacceptable; but it is simplistic and indeed fundamentally wrong, to assume that this behaviour applies to the whole community. Try this link: www.travellerstimes.org.uk/ I used to be picture editor on this magazine and worked alongside many Travellers.

I think that some travellers have come from other countries where, for obvious reasons, they have been less than welcome.

I take your point, Luckygirl, that not all are bad and as GG54 describes, I have only encountered four groups of travellers over the years making use of unoccupied ground, car parks, waste ground next to the DS' s schools etc - but all have behaved in the way that Gabriella describes, to the distress of neighbours, school children, local businesses.

We do not hear about the families who live peacefully on proper sites.

Gabriella, these are the people that HMRC leave alone ! One reason is that they're on the move so much they can't keep up with them-----clever or what ??

They are very wealthy individuals with caravans like stately homes which have to be towed by 4x4's as no other vehicle would manage.

It's a " get rich quick " tactic ( koff ) and they do, then beetle off somewhere else.
Look at the funerals they have ! To say nothing of the weddings with the full palava of coaches, horses etc.
A shop in Liverpool makes all the regalia for these " do's ".

Police have tried, but the discrimination card is played. as unless a crime has been proven, nothing can be done. It's down to land-owners and my bet is that certain councils are given a backhander. Farmers too have been known to be in on the cash.

The government has a planning policy for traveller sites. There are many dotted around this country.
So there you are.

I think "EllanVannin* that you have just illustrated my point very clearly - your information has been gleaned from news bulletins and TV programmes, which seek eye-catching stories that do not reflect the majority of the community.

And yes - I know many Travellers who do of course pay their taxes: they are teachers, academics, sports people, council workers - just like the rest of us.

I am sure there are Travellers who do not pay taxes - but then neither does amazon!

I know of a Traveller who was driving a van full of antiques and was stopped by the police and accused of theft - the man involved gave the police his name and the number of a very famous London auction house and suggested the police ring them. They did, and were told that he was one of their most trusted colleagues and customers.

Here in Merseyside there's a traveller charity group formed encouraging the local people to give travellers a chance to be part of the communities.
Liverpool has strong Irish connections, a Labour run council-----have I said enough ?

Luckygirl I take your point that not all travellers act in this way but many GNs will have seen at first hand the actions of the "few".

I live in the west country and every year we have the same problem with travellers just turning up, not using the sites which are available because they have to pay, parking on private and public land, intimidating passers by. They destroy property and leave mounds of rubbish which the local council have to clear up. It is difficult to respect their lifestyle when they do not respect ours.

It strikes me Luckygirl that those travellers who engage with various agencies and organisations would be those who would abide by the rules, therefore it is unlikely you would have come into contact with many of those who choose to live by their own rules and to hell with anyone else

We have the notorious "Dale Farm Site"in Essex, a no-go area. Local citizens lives blighted daily, their properties are non-saleable.

We regularly have groups squating in parks, car parks and once along a beautiful stretch of grassland by the beach.

There maybe some travellers who act more civilised and intergrate with communities, but that is not our experience in S E Essex.

You do have the ones who abide by the rules, then you have the Romanian ones----------

It must be unbearable living near these unscrupulous groups who give other travellers a bad name. It's amazing that they can somehow bypass the law. Fancy blackmailing local communities like that!
Whatever happened to Boris's water cannons. They might clean up the sites...

I met good Travellers and bad - some I was happy to call friends and some I would never wish to see again. I admired many of their traditions and abhorred some others.

I am saying that they are much like the rest of humanity - good and bad - and it is wrong to condemn the whole mass of them for the actions of the few.

Visible minorities (like black people) are at risk of this blanket condemnation - or were......I thought we had got past this now.

I suppose it's more that some of these people cause a massive amount of stress to others in a way that other visible minorities don't. The OP was highlighting some pretty appalling activities which this particular group seem to get away with. These are actual crimes yet they seem immune to prosecution. Why?

I mentioned a family not the whole of the travelling community, nor did I name the family but the name is out there for all to see.
I have met travellers who appear ok but sleep in their cars rather than shell out for an hotel, wear Armani and Gucci and other premium brands of apparel and carry thousands of pounds in cash on their person.
On the other hand I have seen travellers eye-popping christening celebrations with cribs and prams hired from Harrods for the day and delivered to the venue, marque cars including Rolls, top spec Mercs, bimmers and Audis, Jags and Lambos and more, lining the street outside, most with private plates. Yet those same people defecated in the flower beds, bushes and the folly in the gardens and left bedclothes in an overflowing bath, beer emptied over soft furnishings in public rooms and food ground into the banqueting room and bedroom carpets.
It's hard to distinguish the good from the questionable.
BTW, people with a stable job such as teachers can't, IMO, really be described as travellers, as was mentioned by another poster.

travellers traveller's eye-popping...etc.

There are certainly a lot of badly behaved and criminal activities going on from travellers, my policeman SIL has plenty of stories to tell.There are sites that are virtually no go areas and even police have to be careful, and many instances of ‘slave’ owning in those same sites, where lonely and vulnerable men are housed in squalor and made to work all hours at drive cleaning, laying patios etc for next to nothing, and often very bullied.
Just one or two of these extensive ‘families’ are often the cause of crime waves in local areas.
These people do give travellers a bad name, but there is enough evidence of it, crime, mess and aggresive tactics to name just some of it.

There are definitely different “travellers” - the Irish travellers who own properties in Ireland and travel around England making their money and pitching up wherever and Romany gypsies who have quite different traditions. I appreciate that there are different cultures but I’m not sure why athose who have their roots in Ireland don’t choose to live there.

I wish we had a more robust system to deal with them. The few spoil it for the many. The story you relate GabriellaG54 is extortion surely ‘with menace’? I feel for the poor sods who are crowdfunding.

No wonder the huge traveller family could afford flights and a holiday to NZ. These people have no shame.

One 'family' whose name I know but won't mention, used to frequently wait outside the Sally Army in Swindon to recruit the homeless and addicts to drive cars and steal caravans from the surrounding area and to work for a well known travelling circus company. Two men, whom I met on separate occasions at Crisis, related the same story of being locked in an old caravan at night with minimal food, no washing facilities and a bucket. During the day they set up and dismantled fairground equipment and maned some of the rides (under supervision) however kne trued to escspe by hiding his meagre possessions including personal ID docs which were later found burned.
He was later found to have whip marks on his legs and no means of proving who he was.
That same circus will have been in your area.