Gypsys Life

My Gypsy childhood

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The big fat truth about Gypsy life

The situation probably isn't helped by the fact that there is only one, room refuge dedicated to Traveller women in the UK, also in London. But domestic violence is just one of the issues tackled by O'Roarke during her visits. The welfare needs, particularly those of the women and girls, of this community are vast. The women are three times more likely to miscarry or have a still-born child compared to the rest of the population, mainly, it is thought, as a result of reluctance to undergo routine gynaecological care, and infections linked to poor sanitation and lack of clean water.

The rate of suicides among Traveller women is significantly higher than in the general population, and life expectancy is low for women and men, with one third of Travellers dying before the age of And as many Traveller girls are taken out of education prior to secondary school to prevent them mixing with boys from other cultures, illiteracy rates are high. O'Roarke is a familiar face on the sites around London, offering women and their children help with health care, education and finance.

Graham Rodger A Gypsy’s Life

I visit some trailers with O'Roarke at a site in London and am struck by how the women seem to manage, usually with large families, to keep everything so clean and tidy. There are colourful displays of Royal Crown Derby crockery, handed down from mother to daughter on her wedding day. There is certainly no sign of wealth or excessive spending. Many tell me they struggle to feed their children, and have no savings or bank account. Things seem set to get worse for Traveller women.

O'Roarke is expecting to be the only Traveller liaison worker in the capital before long — her funding comes from the Irish government. Who is supposed to help them if they get rid of the bit of support they have now? If they get a letter saying they are in danger of eviction but they can't read it, what are they supposed to do?

Conditions on the site are as grim as the homes are spotless. The trailers are not connected to water pipes, and the toilets, bathrooms and cooking facilities are in a small, unheated shed across the yard. But living on a site is about being part of the community. When Traveller girls are growing up, they are only allowed to go out with other family members, and once married, her husband rules the roost. Almost immediately her children became depressed. He would buck to get out," says Kathleen. I was on anti-depressives. The children couldn't go out because the neighbours would complain about the noise.

Since moving to their site two years ago, Kathleen and her children have been far happier. They won't let our kids mix with theirs because they say we stink and don't talk properly. Marrying first cousins is also common among Gypsies and a potential genetic timebomb , my parents come from very different backgrounds.

My mother was born into an upper-class American family.

On her gap year she literally ran away with a Gypsy — my father, who bred horses. Both are extremely intelligent and open-minded people who wanted to bring us up in a stimulating, free and fulfilling environment.

Instead of going to school, my siblings and I, like many children from travelling families, were taught about the arts, music and dance. Our education was learning about wildlife and nature, how to cook and how to survive. I didn't know my times tables but I could milk a goat and ride a horse.

I could identify ink caps, puff balls and field mushrooms and knew where to find wild watercress and sorrel. By the age of eight or nine I could light a fire, cook dinner for a family of 10 and knew how to bake bread on an open fire. Not that it was always idyllic: As a child with younger siblings I had to work hard: We also struggled financially; my dad's passion has always been breeding Gypsy cobs.

Sometimes he would get a good sale, but a lot of the time we were penniless.

Then we worked as a family, fruit picking. One summer, I remember practically living off mushrooms as we worked on a mushroom farm.

We also picked daffodils; after about five seasons I developed an allergy to the liquid in the stems and my skin would blister on contact with it. Any money we earned went straight to my mother and father. Our life was always lived outside; working, playing and socialising was all done around the fire or in the woods and fields.

Wet weather was a curse and we would huddle up around a wood burner in one of the caravans. For many years we had no electricity, no television, no radio; nothing electrical. We had china dolls but no other toys. And we played cards — thank God for playing cards! If it wasn't for them, I would have no mathematical ability whatsoever.

Unlike some of my siblings, I learned to read when I was quite young. My mother and grandparents bought me books and, with mum's help, I could read by the time I was about nine. I bought them in charity shops or asked for them as birthday presents; together, books and cards gave me an understanding of words and numbers in the absence of any formal education.

I was, though, completely unaware of the outrageous way the media portrays the Gypsy population. As children, we had very little contact with people living in houses and because we didn't go to school or watch television, I was oblivious.

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My mother didn't take us shopping, as there were so many of us. I remember once when we were camped on a lane close to a council housing estate, children would walk across the field towards where we were playing in the trees to hurl abuse and throw stones at us. But when I asked my brother why they were angry, he didn't seem particularly bothered, saying perhaps it was "because they didn't understand and thought we were dangerous".

If it hadn't been for literature, maybe I would have remained unaware of the way we were described. But a love of books evolved into an interest in magazines and newspapers, and that exposed a world of prejudice and ignorance to me.

Gypsy's Life

In my early teens, I realised for the first time that there's a widely held view that everyone who lives in a caravan or on the road is a dirty, thieving Gypsy, never contributing to society while living for free on land that doesn't belong to them. Gypsies and Travellers are the only social group that it is still acceptable to insult.

In part, I think this stems from our levels of illiteracy and lack of social involvement; if people are unaware of what is being written about them, they're not going to dispute it. And if they don't dispute it, it will carry on. Irish Travellers were granted this status in But it has made very little difference to popular opinion or attitude, and even less difference to the lives of the Travellers themselves.

Gypsy and Traveller people still have the lowest life expectancy, the highest child mortality rate and are the most "at risk" health group in the UK, as well as being excluded from many of the basic social and legal structures. Although I didn't go to school, some of my siblings did. And like so many other Gypsy children, they faced bullying. Often I would turn up at the high-school gates to find them in floods of tears because children had been picking on them. It can be hard to reach your full potential without schooling, but compared with traditional illiterate Gypsy or Traveller families, we had good opportunities and were not expected to marry young, have lots of children and follow in our parents' footsteps.

As a child, my passion had been flamenco the music of the Gypsy community in Spain. My mother took me to a dance class after we settled in Norfolk when I was about nine, and I was hooked. We had rented a piece of land for our wagons and been granted special residency rights by the council. We moved into mobile homes and eventually built a wooden structure to house a bathroom, kitchen and communal area.

This meant I could have regular lessons and I became a professional flamenco dancer. By the age of 17, I was filled with a desire to leave the chaotic comfort of the camp behind. After saving money doing care work I travelled around the world for years, dancing in flamenco bars in Australia, flamenco schools in Spain and on beaches in India.

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