Gypsies
The BBC phone-in this morning got very heated when they were discussing gypsies.
I lived in the country for forty years and everything you didn’t lock up properly disappeared very quickly. The gypsies always got the blame, whether it was their fault or not. I would say though, that if you wanted to hear a farmer get angry, then just bring up the subject of gypsies.
My late wife, C, was a barrister and she was involved in the divorce of a leader of the gypsy community, who incidentally lived in a 1930s semi-detached house in quite a large town. His attitude to those who claimed they were gypsies, was that many were just criminals taking advantage of rights and our good nature. Incidentally, my wife found him to be a very honourable man, who fully abided with the divorce settlement.
We are on the one hand guilty of labelling a community with the habits of their worst members. But then we’ve done that for years with everybody.
The Anonymous Widower 
Gypsies of the Romany variety are generally very pleasant, honourable people who happen to be nomadic. however, there are people who live on waste land and trail from site to site with often grotty caravans, who get gypsies a bad name.
Comment by liz | August 31, 2011 |