Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Are you people on this thread supposed to be educated (whatever nationality) or what? It leaves a lot to be desired!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't remember which poster on here keeps rubbishing the Polish guys who wash cars in supermarket car parks, but I have to admit I regularly use their services. £5 for a wash and £10 for a wash and polish. They do a great job and it saves me from messing about with buckets of water and hoses in the Winter months when I can't be bothered. Instead of knocking these guys for being enterprising, knock the system that allows them to make money on the side while claiming benefits.

I think something has gone wrong.

Where is Bully Bunter?

When boys fall out of bed:

doodle - it's MrT of course .... in fact our guy who started as just a one man band, now employs 3 or 4 at one site (the local garden centre) and has opened another with 2 guys by the the local football club .... they do a really good job at a very fair price, and as a result, have built at least modest success from zero, purely through enterprise and hard work - and of course created employment for others

Village Idiot -

A gormless gimp who couldn't find his arse with both hands.

Dreams.

At least he wouldn't be licking other peoples arses like some seem to enjoy.

Once upon a time, in a particular village, when offered a choice between a dime and a nickel, the village idiot would invariably grin and pick up the nickel and everyone would have a hearty laugh at the stupidity of the village idiot.

One day, a kind-hearted guy says to the village idiot, “You know, although a nickel is larger than a dime, it is only worth half a dime. You should pick up the dime.” The idiot says, “I know that. But if I pick up the dime, people would stop offering me the choice between taking a nickel or a dime, wouldn’t they? Who would be that stupid?”

romanies (gypsies) + travellers
a serious question for serious debate i hope - actually there are several questions to start with

do you (should we) differentiate between true gypsies who have a genuine history and heritage going back many centuries and generic travellers - seemingly predominantly irish?

for ease, let's lump the two types above ...... do we (should we) have a moral obligation to set aside specific locations with basic amenities where these itinerants can legally set up camp?

if so, should there be a set time limit for occupation, thus preventing de facto permanent residency?

should welfare and schooling be extended to these groups and their children, notwithstanding that no taxes and similar will have been or will be paid?


i guess that'll do for now

Myths and Truths


Myth: Gypsies are foreign.

Much media coverage talks of Gypsies and Travellers “invading” places. Invasion is a military term used about armies. How can it be used about a community that has been a part of British society for centuries.

Truth: Gypsies and Travellers have been part of British society for over 500 years.

Myth: Gypsies are dirty.

Truth: Gypsy culture is built upon strict codes of cleanliness learnt over centuries of life on the road. Concepts such as mokadi and mahrime place strict guidelines, for example, on what objects can be washed in what bowls. Gypsies view gorgias (non-Gypsies) as unclean because of the way they live.

For example, Gypsies and Travellers rarely let animals inside their homes, because they believe them to be carriers of disease.

Myth: Gypsies are criminal.

Many Gypsies and Travellers say that legislation passed to curtail their traditional way of life is inherently racist.

Truth: Members of the Gypsy Roma Travellers communities are statistically under represented in the main stream prision population. Just as in any other ethnic minority, some Gypsies are involved in crime. But Gypsies and Travellers say they have been criminalized by laws created to curtail their traditional lifestyle.

Myth: All Gypsies live in caravans

Truth: Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers are recognised ethnic minorities with their own culture, language and beliefs. Yet planning law defines Gypsies simply as people with a nomadic way of life. While this is historically true. 90% of Gypsies across the world now live in houses. Being nomadic is more common in Western Europe. But even here only 50% of Gypsies live in caravans. Gypsies also live in houses but they take their culture indoors with them.

Myth: Gypsies and Travellers are work shy

Truth: Labour formed the bed rock of the agricultural economy until mechanisation. Gypsy and Traveller often start work younger, tradional skills are passed down to the next generation. There is a strong work ethic, based on the need to survice. Many Gypsies also sacrificed their lives for this country in the 1st and 2nd world wars.

Myth: Gypsies and Travellers have become rich through avoiding paying tax.

There is no evidence for this at all.

Truth: Tradionally many Gypsies Roma and Travellers are self-employed and pay tax like anybody else. Both Romani Gypsy and Irish Traveller culture values portable wealth and unlike non-Gypsy culture this wealth is often highly visible. A Gypsy man with a new car and caravan may look flash, but his wealth is just more visible. The amount of capital their home is worth is far less than the equity many non-Gypsies have in their houses but is constantly depreciating in value.

Myth: Gypsies are endowed with special supernatural powers, including the ability to curse and see the future.

Truth: Some Gypsies may well have psychic powers, but no more than anyone else. But some myths can be turned to a community’s advantage. A nation without an army is forced to defend itself with curses and superstition. Some Gypsies have turned the myths about them on their head and earned a living telling fortunes. Gypsy and Traveller fortune tellers have cultivated the mystery that has always surrounded Gypsy culture.

Myth: Gypsies have a genetic wanderlust

Persecution has always been a factor in nomadic life.

Truth: As an ethnic group GRT people do have a nomadic heritage. Nomadic life has been created by two factors, the pull of economic opportunity and the push of persecution. Gypsy and Traveller culture has adapted to suit this by continually working within trades that are highly mobile. Historically, that may have meant working as agricultural labourers, nowadays, it means providing services in the building trade or products that can be easily transported.

Myth: Gypsies and Travellers have never contributed anything to the economy or mainstream culture

Here's an unbelievable entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1954.

“The mental age of the average adult Gypsy is thought to be about that of a child of ten. Gypsies have never accomplished anything of great significance in writing, painting, musical composition, science or social organisation. Quarrelsome, quick to anger or laughter, they are unthinkingly but not deliberately cruel. Loving bright colours, they are ostentatious and boastful, but lack bravery.”

These amazingly ignorant “facts” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica were printed just ten years after thousands of Gypsy men died fighting for this country in the Second World War. And to claim that Gypsies have not accomplished anything of great significance in the arts and sciences is astonishing. Gypsy and Traveller journalists, artists and musicians, academics and historians are all involved in Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month 2008. It is hoped that attitudes and knowledge has advanced since 1954, and GRTHM hopes to continue the process.

Truth: Romanies are Europe’s largest and fastest growing ethnic minority.

Execution, deportation and toleration have not dealt with the “Gypsy problem.” Gypsies and Travellers are here to stay and are becoming increasingly good at demanding that their culture and way of life is accommodated.

The current conflict over Gypsy and Traveller site provision is in nobody’s interests, it is in everyone’s interest to resolve it through educating the wider public about Gypsy and Traveller culture and needs.

DC - a very interesting bit of c+p (from what source?), but you don't answer any of the questions i posed, or at least none with your own views

Pikies? They should be culled alongside foxes and badgers.

I will stay out of this as there in my view will be many ignorant comments.In other words rude through lack of knowledge.

I have lived somewhere some years ago where there was a large community of Gypsies/travellers or whatever. All the myths above were true. They were dirty, collected piles of junk and metal. They were largely criminal. The community consisted of several extended families and every family had several members serving prison time at any point in time. They lived on a council estate in our village. The area became a no go area for the village. All the kids were dressed in rags and filthy. There was plenty of work locally on the farms, but none of them took the jobs. My father was a local magistrate and regularly had to sentence them. We often got a knock on the door in the night to have a search or arrest warrant signed. Every single time it was for a gypsy family. The crimes ranged from burglary, receiving to violence and drug dealing.

Dreams.

At last something useful.

As my headmaster use to say "I knew you could do if you would only b, tried."

What is you source.

Don't quite agree with all the statements, but people do like to gang up and point a finger at and blame other groups for their own dissatisfactions.

One of the reasons for distrusting them as a group is due to their "mobility" and an inability, or lack of will to hold them "responsibilities" for "actions" or misdemeanours. Also, because they are "closed" community it is more difficult to identify an individual who is a villain. It is a bit like all English men looking alike.

I would add to the last statement, educating the Gypsy children would appear to be a necessity, which would mean anchoring the families down. (Unless, one could accept Hitler's problem solving techniques.)
========

I have a confession to make on this subject.

When I retired I bought a reasonably big motor home and travel around France, Spain and Portugal for approximately 9 months of the year for five years.

Mainly "wild camping".

During that period met up with many individuals doing the same. Often, travelled together or met up frequently at different places.

The majority of "vans" were self sufficient and the "campers" seemed welcomed at the places where they stopped, as the "wild campers" were a boost to the local "economy" by purchase of food, petrol, booze and local restaurants in the off season.

Only one minor dispute with police who advised a group of us to move on, but said to come back in a few weeks time and it wouldn't be a problem.

It was one of the most pleasant and relaxed times of my life and made up for about 20 years without holidays because of being too "busy" and a period to catch up with reading etc..

Never met up with Romanies, but was asked by circus "people" if they could buy the motor home.

=========

Also, visited some permanent "gypsy" camps in this country and seen some in France and Spain, which looked or seemed well organised, clean and peaceful.

Not brave enough to stop at one of the sites.


-------------------

A group's morality, I am beginning to think means the values, or rules, which help, or enable an individual, or group to live with the rest of society in some form of "harmony".

Such as , if you pinch my wife you have to take the cat and the dog with you.

Just a piece I found on the net, been told its cr-p so the source does not matter. Does not encourage you to put much on here . Interesting article that Fred. :-))

I had the privelege of meeting a man called Richard Barratt, Dick for short. A true Romany who passed away on March 5th 2009 aged 77 years. Dick lived in Quendon woods for 40 years.The gentle man of the woods lived in a cold leaky hovel that he loved.He told everyone his address was'The Layby Quendon'. He would regularly walk to the Stansted village pushing a pram.
Many a folk thought he was a grandfather but instead of a baby sitting up taking in the sights there were two dogs. He was used to walking miles but sometimes his dogs might get a little tired and so he could put them in the pram. He often walked to the co-op Stansted to top up on some groceries and collect his pension. I was told his pension had been fixed up for him from some wealthy villagers.
The first thing you would notice meeting Dick was his twinkling periwinkle blue eyes. His voice as soft and modulated and he would greet you with a arm and smile.
He was humorous , compassionate and gentle and all coupled with a wealth of knowledge. Dick loved nature and animals as he thought nature was another form of religion.
Iwas told Dick walked from Nottinghamshire to visit his cousin, Queenie who had settled in a caravan in Rickling Green in the early 70s. (Near Stansted airport, Essex) Dick decided to stay in these parts and after trying various woods in several parashes, fixed on the one beside what was then a quiet country road between Norwich and London. Queenie died long ago and dick now lies beside her.
Over the years the quite road became the torrent of traffic called the A11 and the man of the woods was was known by an ever widening circle of lorry drivers who shared their sandwiches . What made everone like this happy hermit so much?
Some spoke of his melodious voice singing among the trees. Some respected his fierce intelligence. Others admired his total devotion to the Royal family, whos birthdays he celebrated in his ramshackled camp. I was told one such celebration turned into a disaster. His hovel burned down. The Royal Engineers from Wimbish barracks built him a new one out of branches and tarpaulines. Nothing to fancy. Dick liked simplicity. After another celebration he lost a gypsy knife sharpening friend who pushed his bike into the thundering traffic. He maintaned his grave on the side of the road with flowers till the day Dick passed away. The grave is still there today with plastic flowers and a cross.
I was told many years ago he pushed his wife around the village in a flower decked chair. After his wife passed away Dick was adopted by the parish. This village is a wealthy village with properties costing 750k - £5 million. Rodger whittaker (South African country and western singer - songs like now Ive got to leave old durham town etc lived a couple of hundred yards away. School children feted him on his 70th birthday. AS I said before an informal committee battled bureaucracy to win him some sort of pension payout. This man who had stubbornly shunned the civilizing efforts of his middle class admirers had his own bank account.
He was so much part of the community he was trusted to look after their houses when citizens were away. Yet all this did not dilute Dick's Romany independence.
What he chose was a world shared with birds joining his song and rabbits caught for the pot. It was the world right next to but a million miles away from the world where we live. For most of his life, Dick inhabited a corner of England swept by a tidal wave of wealth . Tumbledown cottages became mansions with four car garages and olympic swimming pools. The A11 was largely replaced by the M11 . Stansted airport grew mighty a few fields away. Dick seems to have held it all in contempt. So it was an old and crippled man he would limp the lanes to the airport to cadge meals uneaten by pampered passengers. Some nights sitting, there in his woods , Dick Barratt must of worked his way through salmon en croute followed by boeuf bourguignon and after eights. You can't help thinking he had the last laugh on the lot of us . I remember stopping in the lay by in my car and on several occasions giving him half a dozen bottles of the fine whiskey to go on his cornflakes in the freezing mornings of winter.
The devotion of his friends kept Dick alive through that bitter winter but what had happened in his birthplace , Mansfield when he was about 4 yrs got him in the end, I was told . Dick was riding on the crossbar of his Romany fathers bike when a dog lept out at them. In the crash a spoke went through the little boys ankle . It was never really right again. When Dick became seriously ill he had to be pursuaded to accept medical help, due to the infection in his feet. Addenbrookes hospital must of been the longest time he had spent under a real roof in his 77yrs. I was told DIck
immediately enchanted the doctors and nurses with his natural charm and the innate good manners that were so much apart of him. Two days later with quite acceptance he signed the consent form allowing for his left leg to be amputated below the left knee due to gangrene that had set in. The operation was successful and spirits soared in anticipation. He was loved and respected. It made me laugh when I was told the hospital radio dj visited him and asked of any requests, Dick said cheerily ''How about 10 green bottles?'' The dj , momentarily disconcerted said ''Never had that request before''. He found it and the song was played. How like Dick to choose something cheerful and the patients could enjoy and sing along to.But then, he embraced everyone. I wrote this down as I was told, on admission to Addenbrookes when he was asked about kin he responded ''Haven't got one of those - anyway , we are all family ,aren't we?''. What words . And that comment sums up the most gentle of gentlemen who saw the world , the animals , nature and human beings through very special eyes. I always felt a calming experience when I had a chat with him.A swift relapse set in and Dick passed away. I think he saw a future inside was not for him. I have photos of lorry driver tributes that decorated the layby near his hovel,'' Cheerio, mate safe journey''. There was pussy willow on the coffin they carried between the daffodils to the church. He was at home among friends.
Dick was a unique and inspirational man and I was proud to be one of his many, many friends . He was a man that never needed a key because he did not possess anything that needed locking up. No trappings of material gain to bog him down, just a genuine love and appreciation of the life he chose, and a very special closeness to nature. At the funeral they laughed out loud when someone said soap was seldom on his shopping list. They clapped theirhands when someone said he was a true gentleman. I was told it was the happiest funeral you ever saw. And the strangest. In 800 years AllSaints may have welcomed even bigger congregations , but hardly one linked more sincerely in their sadness and gladness. Dick Barratt was their real Romany friend for 40yrs. They were proud of this dishshevelled pram-pusher. People far beyond the twin parishes of Quendon and Rickling knew the gentle man of the woods who died too soon to see the blue bells bloom again around the cold , leaky hovel he loved. R.I.P Dick.

I know Quendon very well. It is a very nice hamlet sized village. I have watched cricket on the green there several times in years gone by. The singer Roger Whittaker used to live there in Quendon Hall. I had a friend who lived in the village.