Articles

Gypsy Roma and Traveller’s History Month launched at the beginning of June, building on the success of 2008 and 2009’s celebrations.  Kicking off at Mile End Arts Pavilion with a sobering reminder of the Holocaust’s legacy of loss among the Sinti and Roma communities of Europe, the events programme takes in historical lectures, musical recitals, dances, art exhibitions and even a Traveller talent show.

The number of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers living in London is estimated at 100,000, making them a substantial part of our city’s diverse make-up.   Under the GRT banner come all manner of people who have worked and traveled their way through Britain during the last 500 or so years.  These include the drover people from Scotland and Wales, Travelers from Ireland, Roma from Europe and Sinti, the Gypsies of Germany.  Working their way through the UK, migrating from seasonal job to job, traveling communities swelled and intermingled with the sedentary local peoples taking work picking hops, gamekeeping,  selling at markets, crewing barges and labouring on canals to become a intrinsic part of British history, myth and tradition. 

Gypsies on Mitcham Common sitting outside a hoop tent. Photo courtesy of Simon Evans

Despite their important role in the history of the UK, Gypsy history is largely ignored in the National Curriculum and in museums, with a few notable exceptions.  As a result of this, popular myths based on misunderstanding and mistrust have become truths to many people – Gypsies being dirty and work shy being one such pejorative nonsense.  Other more romantic perceptions are more complicated.  Gypsies have in the past lived in caravans, but these were often the gifts of the landowners whose estates were policed seasonally by traveling people who worked as beaters and gamekeepers.  More often they lived in hooped tents transported on wagons, a more wild-west look than is commonly imagined.  The GRTHM site has an excellent section on traveler fact and fiction here.

These days most Gypsies are far removed from the rigors of traveling and mainly live in houses, however the Gypsy culture is very much alive.  Dr Brian Belton, a Gypsy and senior lecturer at George Williams College speaks of an underground Gypsy community whose members recognise each other by a look, a gesture or general bearing.  You might not know it, he says, but you probably work with a Gypsy, know one socially or are served by one in your local pub, indeed it is distinctly likely that you yourself have some Gypsy blood somewhere. 

Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month seeks to re awaken peoples’ curiosity, dispel the myths and celebrate the rich past, that we might better move towards a future where the achievements of this long misunderstood section of the British populace are recognized, celebrated and used as a stepping stone to a more integrated way of living.