Travelling towards a better understanding of gypsies

As hundreds of gypsies and travellers arrive in Edinburgh for a religious convention, Romany journalist Jake Bowers offers an insight into their often misunderstood world

Britain's 300,000 gypsies and travellers have lived, worked and travelled throughout Britain for over 500 years, yet we have been almost entirely written out of British history.

The first written record of us in Britain was when we entertained King James in Holyrood Palace in 1505. Since then we've both fought and died for Britain, picked the crops, bred the horses and worked in everything from factories to police stations. Yet go to most museums, libraries and schools and nothing about our history and culture is kept or taught. The result is a widespread ignorance about who we are, which sometimes turns to hatred and fear. As a result, racism against gypsies and travellers is still widely recognised as an enduring form of acceptable racism.

Much of this racism is driven by tabloid media hysteria and misinformation, so let's set some of the record straight.

Far from being dirty, gypsy culture is built upon strict codes of cleanliness learnt over centuries of life on the road.

Just as in any other ethnic minority, some gypsies are involved in crime. But gypsies and travellers have long been criminalised by laws created to curtail our traditional lifestyle, right up to the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which effectively outlawed nomadic life across Britain.

Romany gypsies and Irish travellers are recognised ethnic minorities. Yet planning law defines gypsies simply as people with a nomadic way of life. While this is historically true, 90 per cent of gypsies across the world now live in houses.

We pay council tax, income tax and VAT like everyone else. Most gypsy and traveller men are self-employed and many are VAT registered.

Despite the myths and misunderstandings gypsies and travellers still survive. But we still face many challenges. The British government estimates that 20 per cent of the community is homeless. We have the lowest life expectancy, lowest educational achievement and worst health of any ethnic group in Britain.

The first-ever academic study on the issue, published in 2004, found health problems amongst gypsy travellers are between two to five times more common than in the settled community. The report also looked at the reasons for this, including discrimination and ignorance within the healthcare system and traveller attitudes to health.

That discrimination is also felt schools, where bullying, underachievement and a traditional lack of literacy skills have often placed gypsy pupils at a disadvantage.

Education remains a double-edged sword for many gypsies and travellers. It is valued as a way of learning to read and write, but distrusted because of the "cultural pollution" that comes with it. The parents of today's young gypsies and travellers (many of whom received little or no schooling) see school as a source of what can only be described as "gorgification" (becoming like a non-gypsy).

There are economic factors too, teenage traveller girls are often expected to help at home and teenage traveller boys are often expected to be working with their fathers.

Across Europe, 90 per cent of gypsies and travellers live below the poverty line. Much of the work to improve this situation is being done by charities like Save the Children, Article 12 and religious organisations like the Gypsy Light and Life mission that has organised its convention in Gypsy Brae from July 27 to 31. From the feeding the homeless in London to providing a home for gypsy orphans in Romania, members of the Light and Life Mission represent the best that gypsy and traveller people have always contributed. So if you're worried about who is really coming to town, go along and meet some gypsies for yourself.

• Jake Bowers is editor of Travellers Times Online, Britain's national magazine for the gypsy and traveller community

DISMISSIVE ATTITUDES

ATTITUDES to gypsies and travellers are perhaps best summed up by this entry from the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 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, music, science or social organisation. Quarrelsome, quick to anger or laughter, they are unthinkingly but not deliberately cruel. They are ostentatious and boastful, but lack bravery."

You have to wonder what these figures, all reputed to have gypsy blood, might have made of that: Charlie Chaplin, Rita Hayworth, Elvis Presley, Mother Teresa and Eric Cantona.