gypsy traveller association

Gypsy and Traveler Culture in America

Gypsy and Traveler Culture, History and Genealogy in America

Are you a Gypsy, Traveler or Roader, or have some ancestry in any one of such groups? This site is dedicated to you; to help you become more aware of your own rich heritage, to help preserve your traditions, language and knowledge of where you came from and who you are.

The identities of Traveling People are everywhere threatened by the flood of misinformation that is being disseminated on the web and through the popular media. This site pledges to correct such misinformation and to present an accurate and unbiased view of traveling life as it has unfolded since the your ancestors first set foot in the New World.

Preservation of your ethnic heritage and pride in your own ethnic identity are some of the most valuable assets that any parents can leave to their children and grandchildren. To be of Gypsy or Traveler background is something special, something to be treasured along with the language, customs, and cultural values embodied in a unique way of life.

If you want to learn more about your family and your ethnic group, whether you be of Cale, Hungarian-Slovak, Ludar, Rom, Romnichel or Sinti Gypsy or American (Roader), English, German, Irish or Scotch Traveler background we will provide you with an interactive forum for asking questions, finding lost relatives, guidance to accurate sources, exchanging information as well as just keeping in touch with your own kind.

To get started just send a note to ASK MATT specifying what kind of Gypsy you are and in which family background you are interested.

The foundation on which this site is built is a rich storehouse of data of every imaginable kind: documentary sources, oral histories and observations of traveling life collected in over 35 years of unpaid research by Matt and Sheila Salo. The Salos have dedicated their lives to providing a true history of traveling life in America and to dispelling the myths that are currently being spread on the web and other media.

This endeavor is based on the premise that every kind of Gypsy and Traveler has a right to his or her own identity, whatever it might be. Each of you has a unique heritage that your ancestors nurtured over centuries of hardship and persecution. Now those rich and unique identities are in danger of being lost as more and more people lose the sense of who they are; customs, language and traditional life patterns are not being passed on; some people are even becoming ashamed of their Gypsy or Traveler identities.

Again, email any specific inquiries into American Gypsy or Traveler history, culture and genealogy to Matt T. Salo at ASK MATT .

Forthcoming: This history and culture page under preparation will be divided into subject areas that you can access separately depending on your interests. If you seek information sources, have specific questions, or want to broaden your horizons by learning about other groups, we will provide the best, most accurate information available. You will not be fed speculations about Melungeons, hordes of Gypsies in Colonial America, or Gypsies and Travelers as hapless victims or criminal castes - instead all our information will be based on actual verified data that truly represents the experience of your people in America since your ancestors first arrived here.

Culture and language are not easily lost and, unless you are among those few unfortunate individuals whose parents or grandparents misguidedly tried to separate themselves and their families from their roots, you should easily be able to pick up traits of language and culture that indicate your origins. We will begin with a brief overview of the different groups to orient those among you who are not quite sure of where they belong. More detailed descriptions will follow.

Gypsy and Traveler Groups in the United States

Cale: Spanish Gypsies, or Gitanos, are found primarily in the metropolitan centers of the East and West coasts. A small community of only a few families.

English Travelers: Fairly amorphous group, possibly formed along same lines as Roaders (see below), but taking shape already in England before their emigration to the US starting in early 1880s. Associate mainly with Romnichels. Boundaries and numbers uncertain.

Hungarian-Slovak: Mainly sedentary Gypsies found primarily in the industrial cities of northern U.S. Number in few thousands. Noted for playing "Gypsy music" in cafes, night clubs and restaurants.

Irish Travelers: Peripatetic group that is ethnically Irish and does not identify itself as "Gypsy," although sometimes called "Irish Gypsies." Widely scattered, but somewhat concentrated in the southern states. Estimates vary but about 10,000 should be close to the actual numbers.

Ludar: Gypsies from the Banat area, also called Rumanian Gypsies. Arrived after 1880. Have about the same number of families as the Rom, but actual numbers are unknown.

Roaders or Roadies: Native born Americans who have led a traveling life similar to that of the Gypsies and Travelers, but who were not originally descended from those groups. Numbers unknown as not all families studied.

Rom: Gypsies of East European origin who arrived after 1880. Mostly urban, they are scattered across the entire country. One of the larger groups in the US, possibly in the 55-60,000 range.

Romnichels: English Gypsies who arrived beginning in 1850. Scattered across the entire country, but tend to be somewhat more rural than the other Gypsy groups. Many families are now on their way to being assimilated, hence estimation of numbers depends on criteria used.

Scottish Travelers: Ethnically Scottish, but separated for centuries from mainstream society in Scotland where they were known as Tinkers. Some came to Canada after 1850 and to the United States in appreciable numbers after 1880. Over 100 distinct clans have been identified but total numbers not known.

Sinti: Little studied early group of German Gypsies in the United States consisting of few families heavily assimilated with both non-Gypsy and Romnichel populations. No figures are available.

Yenisch: Mostly assimilated group of ethnic Germans, misidentified as Gypsies, who formed an occupational caste of basket makers and founded an entire community in Pennsylvania after their immigration starting 1840. Because of assimilation current numbers are impossible to determine.

This inventory leaves out several Gypsy groups that have immigrated since 1970 due to the unrest and renewed persecution in Eastern Europe after the collapse of Communism. They have come from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, the former Yugoslavian area, and possibly other countries. They number in few thousands by now, but their numbers are likely to increase.

Copyright @ 2002 Matt T. Salo

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British-Irish Gypsy Traveller History (Part 1)

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In this first of two podcasts Dr Becky Taylor, Reader in Modern History at the University of East Anglia and Editor-in-Chief of 'History: The Journal of the Historical Association' is asked questions by Helen Snelson, Chair of HA Secondary Committee. The questions in part one focus on how Dr Taylor came to research the history for Gypsies and Travellers herself. She then explains why it is that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history is less taught in universities as well as in schools.

Dr Taylor defines what is meant by the terms 'Gypsy', 'Traveller' and 'Roma' by drawing upon the research that has taken place about origins, arrivals in Europe, the way attitudes have shifted over time, and how nomadic people have adapted to social and economic change - being separate but also an integral part of local economies. She explains that a problem with the written accounts is that they are mostly from the state and about problems, in this way her work shares a similarity with research about other less powerful groups of people, the noise and the silences in the archives need to be carefully thought about for what they reveal, oral histories are important, and a breadth of understanding of context is vital. Her explanations are rich in examples from across Europe that paint a complex and diverse picture that is not so well known as other histories.

1. Introduction: How did you get interested in researching Gypsy and Traveler history? 2. Why is Gypsy Traveler history not taught much at school or university? 3.What do we mean by Gypsies and Travelers? 4. What are the challenges when writing the histories of Gypsies and Travellers?

In order to access the full content of the podcasts please Login or Join the HA .

Supporting Gypsies and Travellers

Rooftop is a leading provider of culturally appropriate homes for the Gypsy and Traveller community, and active members of the National Policy Advisory Panel on Gypsy and Traveller Housing (NPAP), and the National Association of Gypsy Traveller Officers (NAGTO).

Supporting the community

The Gypsy and Traveller population in Worcestershire accounts for the largest single minority ethnic group within the county.

Rooftop Group Chief Executive, Boris Worrall has established the National Policy Advisory Panel on Gypsy and Traveller Housing (NPAP).

NPAP is linked to the Oak project, the aims of which are to focus on the following three themes:

• Enabling planning for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) sites
• Encouraging resident voice/co-production
• Improving site management

Did you know

• The term Gypsy is often used as a general name that includes these distinct groups of people:
• Gypsies (including English Gypsies, Scottish Gypsies or Travellers, Welsh Gypsies and other Romany people)
• Irish Travellers (who have specific Irish roots)
• Roma, understood to be more recent migrants from Central and Eastern Europe

The term Traveller can also encompass groups that travel. This includes, but is not limited to, New Travellers, Bargees and travelling Show people.

• Around 300,000 Gypsies and Travellers live in the UK. Around 200,000 live in houses and 100,000 in trailers (caravans).

Read our booklet ' Pride, not Prejudice ' for an insight into Gypsy and Traveller life.

Pleas also read Places We're Proud Of by Rooftop Housing Group for more information.

How Rooftop gets involved

We have been involved in a number of projects, such as undertaking the refurbishment of and extension to the caravan site at Houndsfield Lane in Wythall, delivering a new 11 pitch site at Gables Close in Solihull, and also managing seven additional pitches at Gables Close on behalf of Solihull Council. We currently manage 41 pitches across two sites.

We are currently working in partnership with Coventry City Council to deliver a new site.

We also provide advice and guidance for other organisations that wish to deliver their own affordable housing for Gypsies and Travellers.

Rooftop are active members of National Policy Advisory Panel on Gypsy and Traveller Housing (NPAP), and the National Association of Gypsy Traveller Officers (NAGTO).

Our sites at Houndsfield Lane and Gables Close provide 41 plots for Gypsy and Traveller families.

For more information on these sites please contact us by emailing: [email protected] or if you are interested in applying for a pitch please fill out our pitch application form .

Gables Close

Gypsy and Traveller site, Solihull

Houndsfield Lane

Gypsy and Traveller site, Near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

Apply for a Pitch

It is important that you provide accurate information and answer all questions. If you provide and false information, your application will be void.

Should you need any help in completing this form, please contact the Neighbourhood Officer on 0800 0421 800

What Rooftop means to me

Mrs Anonymous

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Gypsy police officers band together to beat prejudice in the force

W hen the words Gypsy, Roma, Traveller and police feature in the same sentence, it is usually in reference to some confrontation. The news last week that the Metropolitan police is conducting an investigation into allegations that officers used a secret online forum to air racist views about members of those communities is just the latest example of the depth of the problem. Now, an organisation of GRT police officers is hoping to challenge public perceptions and provide a network for fellow officers, who have often felt isolated in their job.

This month sees the first anniversary of the formation of the Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association (GRTPA). Formed by a handful of officers, it now has a membership of 105 police staff across 23 of the 43 forces in England and Wales, and Scotland. Members range from a young Romany dog-handler in Kent to an experienced sergeant in Humberside.

“There is an old Romany saying – Gel on pukker nixes – which means ‘move on and say nothing’,” says Jim Davies, a police constable at Thames Valley police and executive director and driving force behind the GRTPA. “That worked for many centuries as a survival strategy, but not any more.”

Davies, who joined the police in 1994, grew up on a caravan site near Banbury in Oxfordshire where his father had a successful tarmac business. But Davies was conscious at an early age that his parents tried to distance him from the community. “It was a protective mechanism,” he says, sitting in the Banbury police station canteen. “Parents will go to quite some lengths to almost ‘de-Gypsify’ their children. You grow up knowing that people will regard you differently, particularly if you live on a site. “Growing up, I knew that there was an issue between the Gypsy and Traveller community and the police without really understanding why,” he says.

Nevertheless, he joined Thames Valley police, after finding himself unfulfilled by work in a bank and in car sales. Initially, he was conscious of the casual attitudes towards Gypsies and Travellers among some officers, whether in the use of derogatory terms like “pikey” or “gyppo” or the general perception of them as criminals. He eventually raised the issue with his senior management, and this led – with the backing of the Police Federation – to an employment tribunal last year at which he claimed he had been subject to racial discrimination through the behaviour of fellow officers. A non-financial settlement was reached, which neither side is allowed to discuss in detail. But it resulted in an independent review of how Thames Valley police engages with GRT communities, and is due to be published shortly.

A year earlier, Davies had decided to seek out other serving officers from his community in the police force. “You can think you’re the only Gypsy Traveller police officer,” he says. A sergeant who had done a lot of work in the area told him he was aware of seven in Surrey. “They had all told him there was no way he was allowed to ‘out’ them.”

In late 2013, a meeting under the auspices of what was then the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) – now the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) – examined the issue of police relations with the community. There Davies met Petr Torak, an officer with Cambridgeshire police, who had come to Britain as a teenager with his family as refugees from the Czech Republic at a time , in 1999, when Roma there were being attacked by skinheads and far-right groups.

Torak, who had always wanted to be a police officer, spoke little English when he arrived but was encouraged by his father to seek a job in the police. He joined in 2006. “My life mission is promoting the police as a career [to the GRT community],” says Torak, who has just been awarded an MBE for his work with the GRT community in Peterborough. “We have to deal with a very negative media which suggests that all Roma are beggars and thieves.”

At this gathering, the idea was born to “start our own association and challenge that stereotype that sees us as criminals”, says Davies. The official launch in parliament was hosted by Labour MP Andy Slaughter, now shadow justice minister. Full membership is open to all from those backgrounds, honorary membership being available to supporters within the police service.

An email was sent to all police forces. Many of those who got in touch were reluctant to be identified. Davies likens their situation to that of gay officers 20 years ago, when he first joined the police. Since those days, and the formation of gay police organisations, gay police officers have marched in uniform on gay pride marches and reached the rank of chief constable.

“You have two groups who, on the surface, aren’t visible,” he says. “When I joined, it was still unusual to be openly gay in the police, and I heard stories from a few years earlier of physical attacks on gay officers. What they have achieved has given me a lot of heart. I’m not saying the police is perfect now in the way it treats gay people, but there has been a huge improvement in quite a short period of time. I don’t see why the same can’t be achieved for us.”

He hopes that more and more colleagues will feel free to be open about their backgrounds. “You can sense a nervousness about admitting it publicly. People will say, ‘My dad was a Gypsy, that’s why I’m interested’ – and I’ll say, ‘That makes you a Gypsy then!’ You can understand it. If you go back hundreds of years, being recognised as a Gypsy meant death.”

Even today, many in the community are reluctant to identify themselves as such. In the 2011 census, 58,000 people identified themselves as Gypsy or Irish Traveller , although the true figure is thought to be many times that number.

Prejudice is still common, says Davies, whether it is being followed round a store by security staff or being barred from a pub. He shows me a photo of a sign at a Worcestershire caravan site that says: “No loud music, no Travellers, all dogs must be kept on leads.”

One of the biggest recent clashes involving police and Travellers came in 2011 at Dale Farm in Essex . There were violent exchanges around the eviction of families from the site, which led to 34 arrests. “Things like that don’t help because the coverage of it tends not to go into the fact that there are many families who are homeless, and local councils are loth to provide adequate accommodation because of the feeling of their constituents and the fuss that it will cause.”

The police service in general and Thames Valley in particular have been very supportive of the association, says Davies. The Police Federation is helping to organise the GRTPA’s first national conference in November. Mark Watson, a former police inspector who liaises between the NPCC and GRTPA, says that the police nationally were very appreciative of the new association. “Trevor Phillips, when he was the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that prejudice against the community was ‘the last acceptable form of racism’ and, sadly, that’s probably still the case – so I don’t blame people for being reluctant to identify themselves,” Watson says. “We want to try and change that.”

The association has also been welcomed by the community from which it sprung. Matt Brindley, policy and research manager of the Traveller Movement , which aims to involve the GRT community in decision-making processes at a national policy level, says the association’s existence has already “dramatically improved how Thames Valley, Cheshire and Humberside police – to name but a few” engage with the wider community. Police officers can now be seen as “role models challenging the negative stereotypes too often seen in the media”, he says.

For Davies, Torak and the growing number of colleagues, like dog-handler Kate West in Kent and police sergeant Tracey Chaney in Humberside, the time when they felt they had to “move on and say nothing” has clearly passed.

“In 26 years in the police I never thought I would see the day when there was an organisation like this, so I’m very proud to be a member,” saysChaney, who is a director of the association. “I didn’t feel able to tell colleagues about my background until about two or three years ago. I’m visible, but I know there are others in the organisation and in the police who don’t feel able to be yet.”

The GRTPA website carries testimonials from serving officers recounting their experiences.

Here are two, the first from a former decorated soldier.

“The month I left the military I visited my grandparents who had stopped at a site, taking with me my prized medals along with the union flag I had brought in a charity raffle held for a friend who died in service. Leaving my grandfather’s site I was stopped by the police, they searched my car and upon finding the medal asked me: ‘Who have you stolen this from?’ My reply, ‘Her Majesty’, reflected the attitude of the officers. Needless to say they appeared rather embarrassed when they found my military ID card and compared that to my name engraved on the side of the medal. Ironic as within less than a week I was about to swap that military ID card for a police warrant card. The examples of racism towards GRT people and communities during my time in the police have been frequent, offensive and unchallenged, much to my shame. After eight years of silence, I decided to join another constabulary and be proactive in promoting my heritage. I can honestly say that the people who are aware I am a Gypsy have made no derogatory remarks in front of me.”

“Control room calls up, a shoplifting in progress, two female shoplifters, any units free? Silence. Repeat, shoplifting in progress, any units free to deal, shop staff believe they are Travellers. Suddenly, four units are available and all sorts of people offering ‘backup’ for two unnamed/unconfirmed women!”

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The Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Social Work Association are looking for new members!

Are you a social worker and Gypsy, Roma or Traveller (GRT)?  Allison Jackie and Doreen are setting up a GRT Social Work Association and are looking for new members!

Hello, our names are Jackie Bolton, Doreen Dove and Allison Hulmes and we are all social workers from Gypsy and Traveller families. There have been many times when each of us has wanted a shared space for support and to influence a shift in the narrative around the negative way social workers are viewed by GRT communities. We know that’s often due to the social workers’ lack of understanding about GRT communities and poor practice. We have a hunch that there are more GRT social workers out there who we would like to link up with, including some who may be reluctant to talk about their ethnicity for fear of discrimination in their workplace.

We are planning to set up a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Social Work Association to provide a network for all GRT social workers, and a space where we can share experiences, be visible and confident in saying who we are. We want to support good social work practice within GRT communities and promote social work as a positive career choice for anyone from a GRT background. 

Membership is open to all GRT social workers (or student social workers) in the UK and Republic of Ireland plus allied professionals in social care.

To learn more join our Facebook group ‘GRT Social Workers’ or email Allison Hulmes at  [email protected]  We look forward to hearing from you.   

Main photo: Founding members of the GRT Social Work Association 

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Business hq, our writers, announcements, it needs guts to take the road less travelled. and for gypsies, that means protecting their children from the outside world. but at what cost.

'we worry about the problems the other kids bring

to school, the sex and the drugs'

Anne is up and strutting now, a mug of tea in one hand and a book in the other, swatting away at a fly. She spills the tea. The book, well- thumbed and dog-eared, is a children's tale about rabbits. A little flaxen-haired girl wearing nothing but a pair of pants and a grin trundles over, blethering away in her thick Irish brogue, as her mother and aunties chatter. Her name is Megan. She is joined by another girl, Bonnie; then her cousin Davy, who relaxes a little deeper into a chair. Sonny is being shoogled in his pram.

Anne will not go into the full details, but there had been some trouble at home in Coalisland, in County Tyrone. Their brother had been beaten up by a group of men from a paramilitary group. So they left for Scotland. ''If that's on [she points to the tape-recorder] we're saying nothin'.'' Then she breaks into a smile. ''And don't you go taking down any plate numbers an' all.'' The women laugh and mutter among themselves. A box of crayons lies scattered on the ground.

The family, a group of Irish Gypsy travellers, arrived in Dumfries a few days ago. They are permanently on the move, they say. Always packing for a fresh start, travelling for work - or just travelling for travelling's sake. Whether it is wanderlust or restlessness, they all share the conviction that they can find a better life somewhere else. This time round they moved because of the ''buffers'' - boys from the settled community. They might stay for a few days, a week, maybe more. ''This is how it is,'' says Margaret, a bull-necked woman in her twenties who is trying to fix a diesel people-carrier that has just broken down. It refuses to budge. The sky is flinty grey. The children tack back and forward between the car and a neat row of caravans. A pile of washing is spread out over a clothes line. Restless parents, restless children.

Today there are no men on the site. They have loaded up their vans and gone to look for whatever work they can get - although, according to their wives, they might have to move again because ''they haven't turned a coin all week''. And, they say, ''the buffers don't give us as much work as they used to''. Animus towards Gypsy travellers - from individuals, local authorities, employers and central government - is so great, says Anne's older sister, Noreen, that she believes her community is running out of places where they feel even remotely welcome. ''By the time you put the kettle on, the peelers [police] are comin' to get youse.''

Anne's daughter Megan attends pre-school classes in a Portakabin sitting near the entrance of the site at Thistle Grove, Collin. She has changed into white frilly socks and a pretty pink dress before going to the classroom. Today she is doing her colours. A few hours later Jimmy-Dean, Shannon and Charlene return to the site, having spent the day at nearby Collin Primary. Jimmy-Dean tells me he has ''learnt to spell my name''. The children are all Gypsy travellers. Eve-Cherie and Kelly-Marie, another pair of Gypsy traveller sisters from England, have joined the group for a cigarette and a cup of tea. Eve-Cherie, a pretty, dark-haired girl in her early twenties, is lamenting the lack of a boyfriend or husband. ''I'd take a buffer too,'' she laughs, ''if I could find one.''

Thistle Grove is a permanent site for the Gypsy travelling community. Each pitch can house two large caravans, a van or a four-wheel drive. Neat, clean and well-maintained, it is more like the exception than the rule when it comes to Gypsy traveller site accommodation. The majority of sites set aside by local authorities for Gypsy travellers are not traditional ones, and are barely suitable at all. Many are close to electricity pylons, dumping grounds and railway lines; while most have the basics of running water and electricity, they lack any community facility. There is no hall or shop, or anything for the children. In most circumstances, Gypsy travellers are perceived as a welfare situation, yet they do not particularly want any help or handouts, preferring instead to continue as they have done for centuries on the road. This, however, is proving extremely difficult.

''I don't mind the children going to school to learn the basics,'' says Anne, fresh from cleaning her spotless caravan full of glass and china. ''The travellers' lifestyle is changing now and we need to keep up with the times, especially for the girls. They need to be able to learn what the buffers know so they can work. I wouldn't stop my kids from going to college, as long as they didn't lose their culture. I just want them to be happy. The priest used to teach us about integration, about children being the same. Sure, if my daughter wanted to marry a big black fella, I wouldn't care as long as she's happy. But we worry with the problems that the buffer kids bring to school, the sex and the drugs. If we saw one of our men doing the drugs over there '' She points. ''We'd turn our backs on him. We don't want that.''

While primary education is fine, secondary schooling is seen as anathema to their culture. Ann Cummings is a traveller education teacher based at the Collin site. There are two nursery teachers available five days each week - the law requires two members of staff even if it is only one pre-school child - while for the older group, the ones between 12 and 16, Cummings is usually there by herself three times per week. The number of children in attendance changes constantly, but is never really more than a handful.

''We accept that, as part of the Gypsy traveller culture, people can get up and leave at a moment's notice,'' says Cummings. ''Sometimes there is just one [pupil], depending on what family is here. Families leave on a whim. Some have just left.

''With regard to the teenagers, they would come here because they don't like going to secondary school. We do literacy skills, computer skills, art craftwork and that kind of activity. We get life skills work as well - dealing with money, banks, doctors' appointments, job applications and generally filling in forms. Most of the parents want their youngsters to be involved in this. But when they get to about 12 they prefer to stay outside the school system. They think schooling is our world and not theirs.''

In January this year, new guidance to help schools understand and develop inclusive approaches to the needs of Gypsy travellers was published by the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (Step). Addressing issues such as bullying, how to manage interrupted learning and the difficulties experienced in accessing education services, the campaign also aimed to celebrate the positive aspects of the diverse Gypsy traveller culture. Speaking at the Traveller Education Centre in Collin, Cathy Jamieson, the education minister, emphasised that every child in Scotland had the right to a high-quality education. She conceded that ''much still needs to be done'' - although on paper at least, many of the issues of the Gypsy traveller community appear to have been addressed.

In reality, though, the story is different.

The Irish sisters are not alone in their dismay. In June this year I met with Davy at the Dennystone Forge site at Dumbarton. Davy, who has lived at the site for more than 20 years, does not believe in schooling after the ages of 11 or 12: ''Nothing they can learn there they can't learn with the community.'' However, he says that the nearby school, Renton Primary, is quite good ''because they tolerate the children OK''.

Beside us when we talk is Mark Kennedy, a spokesperson for the Scottish Gypsy Traveller Association (SGTA). With his boxer's heft, thick neck and solid shoulders, he visibly bristles at what Davy has said. ''I hate that word. Tolerate. We shouldn't just be tolerated: we've every right to be treated the same as anyone else. These are children we're talking about.'' Kennedy shakes his head, exuding a very specific sense of gravity.

The SGTA office was forced to close in December 2002 because the Scottish Executive ceased its financial support and the group was unable to pay its phone bills or rent. ''There have been people in authority who have been displeased with the SGTA,'' barks Kennedy, ''because it keeps prodding. I call it institutional racism. But we'll keep going.''

In 2001 the Scottish Parliament's equal opportunities committee published a report calling for an end to discrimination against Gypsy travellers, highlighting that such discrimination was particularly widespread in terms of housing, education and health services, and also noting that the average life expectancy among Scottish travellers was just 55. The Executive accepted 37 recommendations from the publication, and a further progress report will be published later this year.

Kennedy and I walk over to a small group of children. Martin Gilheney, ten, is in primary six at Renton. He likes school, he says, ''because you get painting and stuff'', although he doesn't like sums. His cousin Patrick McPhee, nine, quite likes school but not homework. James Gilheney, five, hates it. He picks his nose. His sister Charlene, 12, with her big hooped earrings, is in primary seven. She is hungry and walks off for something to eat. ''I hate it sometimes,'' decides Martin. ''The teachers roar at you all the time. It's better here [on the site] because you get to play and all that. Nobody roars at you.'' What about the other children at school, I ask: how do they treat you? ''OK,'' he replies. ''Sometimes they give you a hard time. Hittin' me and all that. I telt the teacher and she never believed me.''

Kennedy sits down on the grass. ''I used to like to go shifting [travelling],'' he says, grinning and energised. ''The minute the sun came out, I wondered where we were going now. Do you shift? Do you like it?'' Martin's face lifts. ''I like shifting. I prefer it. I like the water. I get sent for sticks for fires and stuff when we're away camping.'' He stops, distracted by something in the distance. ''That's a good Audi, in't it? I know about motors. We all know about cars. My favourite's a BMW. A soft-top. I've got a motorbike, 100cc. I run a quad [bike] too.'' Little Patrick pipes up: ''Mine's is a Mercedes.'' Martin says he has been driving for years. Patrick tells me he wants to go to high school, and Martin looks at him and pulls a face. ''I don't want to go to the high school,'' he says. ''I want to work with my daddy.''

There are no figures for the number of Gypsy traveller children in Scotland at mainstream primary and secondary schools. For a Gypsy traveller, visible and vulnerable to authority, to go through the whole school system is difficult. Culturally it is problematic - and this is a story I hear repeated by many Gypsy travellers throughout the summer. The way they think their lives should be is very different from that of the settled community. You have modern young men and women growing up in a modern-day society who want to participate in life the same as everybody else. But they happen to be Gypsy travellers, and they also want to be able to maintain their own traditions and their own way of life. Many Gypsy travellers, for example, do not keep written records of birth certificates; nor do they always even register their children. They might not always reveal the real age of a child if it means

keeping a few of them together at primary instead of an older one having to leave for secondary. Similarly, if they want to get them into primary, they might say they are three when they are only two.

Notes from a Gypsy traveller site at Annathill, North Lanarkshire. Broken bottles. Decrepit out-buildings. Old gas tanks. Furrow-faced children. Run-down, irregular and decaying. Bad smell. Katie's nice garden. Rubble. Concrete. Play-swing. Expensive houses across the back. Broken washing machine. A stubbornly literal place. Four tenants. A tangle of children. A pool of dirty water. Oil stagnating in a drain. Stationary utopia?

Annathill is where Katie McAllister has spent the last 15 of her 74 years. Katie, whose husband died three years ago, says she would be happy dying here at the site now that he is gone. But, she claims, North Lanarkshire Council want her off the site. She says they have given the tenants until October 17 to leave for another site - Forrest Street, in Plains, just outside Airdrie - or to make alternative arrangements. The tenants believe they are being moved for financial reasons - that the large expanse of land is worth a small fortune to developers - but this is an accusation the council denies.

On the day I speak with Katie, she is nursing her six-month-old granddaughter Gypsy Summer. ''The past three years, they're trying to get me out my house,'' she says. ''Now they're denying Gypsy her birthright. And I'm happy here.'' Katie's daughter, Kathleen Macdonald, who is 49, has also been threatened with eviction. Another of Katie's granddaughters, Frances Antonio, six, is playing on the swings. It is the only part of the site on which the children can play comfortably.

Andrew, Kathleen's ten-year-old nephew, has just finished some work around the site. ''There's no point in sending Andy to high school to learnt [sic] how to hold a pint and smoke a fag,'' she says. She pauses. ''I don't mind the primary. But we don't like the high school. I had a boy who was never one bit of bother until he went to the high school, not one bit. Then there was problems.'' She pauses again. The site, which has been run down over the last five years with no new allocation of pitches, looks like a set of bad teeth. ''I've been here on and off over the last few years. I don't think it's fair that they want to push us off.'' She points over to the back. ''My mother was here before they put those houses up.''

The ''not in my backyard'' syndrome is a contentious issue - but, according to John Gormley, the tenancy operations manager with North Lanarkshire Council's Housing and Property Services, the decision to concentrate on Forrest Street at the expense of other sites was not taken lightly. The options available to the council were the subject of research undertaken by the housing service, and followed consultation with a number of interested parties including the SGTA, the local Gypsy travellers themselves and other residents living adjacent to the sites.

''The need to review the council's provision was prompted by the fall in demand for pitches,'' says Gormley. ''Only four tenants are in residence at Annathill, despite there being 52 pitches provided. The age and condition of [the site] now means that extensive repairs and improvements are required to maintain the pitches to a lettable standard.

''The site at Forrest Street is relatively modern and in good order, hence the reason the four tenants have been offered a transfer to that site. As yet, they have still to advise the council as to whether they will accept the offer or make alternative arrangements. To assist with the move, a disturbance allowance will be paid to cover the cost of relocation. Indeed, the closure date has been put back until October 17 to give the four residents extra time to prepare for their move.'' Kathleen Macdonald, however, claims they were offered a (pounds) 6 compensation voucher to cover diesel.

Mark Kennedy believes that most of the officially recognised sites are now no more than cultural graveyards. ''What's happening here is social exclusion. Decisions are being made about people's lives without taking into account what is actually going to happen to them. If someone takes your link away or the rock that you hold on to, then who are you?''

''There's a lot of misunderstanding about Gypsy travellers' culture,'' insists Mary Hendry, who works with Glasgow City Council and is the chair of the SGTA. Part of her remit with the council is to look at issues that affect Gypsy travellers within education services. ''A lot of people think that you can simply opt into this way of life,'' she says. ''You can't. It's a very, very bona fide way of life. The Scottish Equal Opportunities Commission has stated in its recommendations that Gypsy travellers are in fact an ethnic minority and should be treated as such under the Race Relations Act.''

Hendry grew up ''settled'' in Airdrie because her parents wanted her to go to school, although the family travelled around every summer. ''Trying to get Gypsy traveller children into secondary schooling is virtually impossible,'' she says. ''The parents just say 'no'. There are a lot of Gypsy travellers who have gone on and received further education, gone on to university and come out the other end and have gone into professions. Even for them, that's a very difficult road as well. They are up against their family, they are going against their culture and the big fear is that if you opt out you will lose what you are. That is a very big fear for parents. If someone [the authorities] starts a fuss, the parents just get up and go.''

Disappearing is never as easy as it seems. Rules and regulations governing where Gypsy travellers are allowed to live - the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in particular - curtailed their peripatetic lifestyle. Ironically, the Criminal Justice Act was brought in principally to deal with New Age travellers, who came to prominence during the 1980s, by making it virtually impossible for anyone to travel in large groups and stay in lay-bys or on farmland. Yet it had a profound effect. Although it was not really meant to have an effect on traditional travellers, soon the statute book and the police were enforcing it. There was supposed to be a policy of non-harassment of traditional travellers (until such times as there were enough sites to accommodate all of them) but in practice this proved difficult and Gypsy travellers were constantly moved on in huge numbers.

Alex Kennedy was born in Lanark but grew up in Larkhall, where he learned the ropes of his father's scrap-metal business. Most of his early teenage years were spent driving his father's lorry on public roads instead of attending school. The education authorities kept coming to his parents' house demanding to know why he wasn't there. ''It was a different education,'' says Alex, who is now in his fifties, as he sits in the garden of a friend's house (there are two motor-homes nestling in the driveway). ''I call it survival on the roads. It's almost a thing of the past now, and it makes me feel terrible that it's going.''

Alex lives his life by the gospel of clear-eyed common sense. He is against ''tokenism'', and believes ''something is not always better than nothing''. In the fifties, many Gypsy travellers worked around the country in scrap and on the roads; in tinsmithing, pearl fishing and hawking; and around the strawberry and potato harvests. But most of that way of life has finished. There is no longer even a Gypsy king - yet when Charles Faa Blyth was crowned in 1898 in Kirk Yetholm, in the Scottish Borders, 10,000 people came to witness the event.

The knock-on effect has meant that traditional working practices have disappeared and there has been little or no money put into developing new skills. Although many Gypsy travellers have found it increasingly difficult to access much of what the non-travelling or settled community take for granted - simple things such as registering with a doctor at a surgery, allowing them a small foothold in the health service - the biggest stumbling block has been education.

Alex's three grown-up sons attended primary school but never went to secondary. Like his own father, he wanted them to learn about life outwith schools: ''Basic reading and writing, a bit of geography, a bit of history. When the boy hits about 12, he's a man. He comes out in the van with me and learns about life. But it's difficult for them to try and get an honest living because of people's perceptions. A lot of our traditional work is being stopped now because there's people that get up to a bit of detriment. There's rogues in our people as well, an awful lot, but the thing is we get the blame for everything. If there was ever any trouble that I've seen throughout my life, we've never involved what we call the gorges people, the house dwellers.'' He talks for a while, sometimes angrily, other times movingly, slipping in and out of the language of the Roma.

You can hear his ancestors in the way he talks. He speaks both Romany and cant, another travellers' language, but politely refuses when I ask for more examples. ''A few years ago I did a thing at a school, a wee talk, and there was some gypsy children there. I was talking about the wagons and I told them the two different ways of saying it in Romany and cant. I wrote it up on the blackboard and a wee travelling boy says to me, 'Hey, I'm telling my da. You're mangin' the cant, you're telling all the flatties how we talk.''

Alex's fears for his community, he says, are manifold. While he accepts that children need to be educated, he believes that too much schooling detracts from his own culture. ''They want to paint our faces white,'' he says.

Schooling, with all its encumbering baggage, only confirms the travelling community's own prejudices. Because the Gypsy travelling community has a strong idea of family and extended family, it does fear chaotic situations. As a result, the travellers' lack of desire to embrace the education and housing system confirms other people's prejudices of them as illiterate, uneducated and unsociable.

It is an accusation that cannot be levelled at Alex Kennedy. ''This is not just about our lifestyle,'' he says, massaging his large hands. ''It's part of Scottish history. The Scottish gypsy is a big part of this history. It's there for everybody. It's an education for them [the settled community] - if they only knew.''

He pauses. A pale apricot light touches his face. ''If we lose it, well, it's like shooting the last hippopotamus. What a shame. What a loss. Bang, bang, it's dead. You can't bring them back once they're gone.'' n

20.09.03 the herald magazine #

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Supporting Gypsy and Traveller communities

Funding for accommodation.

Up to £20 million will be invested to provide more and better accommodation for Gypsy/Traveller communities.

This funding, part of Scotland’s first long-term national housing strategy, will enable local authorities to improve existing sites and expand provision over the next five years. This builds on £2 million allocated to site improvement in 2020-21.

It comes as the timeline to complete the range of actions from the Gypsy/Traveller Action Plan has been extended by 18 months, due to the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions. This includes continuing work to improve access to public services such as health and education, better engage with member of the Gypsy and Traveller community and tackle negative attitudes towards them..

Equalities Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said:

“A key commitment in the Action Plan was for the Scottish Government and COSLA to review housing and investment programmes to ensure the needs of Gypsy/Travellers were included going forward. I am delighted to announce that up to £20 million will be made available over the next five years for more and better Gypsy/Traveller accommodation as part of Housing 2040, Scotland’s first long-term national housing strategy.  

“The Gypsy Traveller Action Plan outlines the commitment of both the Scottish Government and COSLA to work together to improve the lives of Gypsy/Travellers. We have made some good progress and want to offer heartfelt thanks to all the community members who worked with us to develop the plan, and to take forward some of the actions. While we are still committed to delivering all the actions in the plan, we know that more time is needed because of delays caused by COVID-19. The Scottish Government and COSLA have therefore agreed to extend the life of the plan. It will now run for an extra 18 months and end in October 2022. This gives us the opportunity to follow up on actions that cannot take place until restrictions lift and prevents us from losing the momentum we’ve gained during the pandemic.”

Gypsy Traveller Action Plan: letter from Scottish Government and COSLA - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Improving the lives of Gypsy/Travellers: 2019-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Housing to 2040 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government has been working with partners to drive up the quality of accommodation on Gypsy/Traveller sites. Officials are developing a Design Guide, which will set the standard for new building of accommodation. These standards will be in keeping with the key principles of Housing 2040 such as accessibility and energy efficiency.

The Scottish Government is seeking the views of site residents and will ask Gypsy/Travellers to complete the online survey. If anyone needs help to complete the survey, or would rather give answers over the phone to someone who can fill it in on their behalf, they can call the Scottish Government on 0141 244 1162 or contact the Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (MECOPP).

MECOPP Carers Centre

Design Guide Survey

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