Tape 139
Mikeen McCarthy 11.5.81.
Contents
Talk about being moved around by police and councils.
Talk about 1968 camping and Caravan act.
Preference given to English Travellers, when sites are designated.
Travellers who don't want to settle down.
What Travellers require on a stopping site.
Difficulty in getting children educated while on the road.
Only thirty Irish Traveller families would settle in London if they were given the opportunity.
Irish Travellers excluded from official Sites in London unless they are able to buy their way in.
Prejudice against the Irish among Travellers.
Irish Travellers un-represented on official committees.
Need to have mixed, English, Irish and Scots Travellers.
English Travellers attitude to other nationalities of Travellers.
Meeting at Houses of Parliament attended by Mikeen.
Clinton Davis's election promise to clear all the Travellers out of Hackney.
All councils in London now applying for designation so they will not have to provide sites for Travellers.
Security guards worst of all towards Travellers.
How Travellers break into unofficial sites, police raid trailers.
Cunningham, Islington M.P. wants to do away with the two weeks notice of eviction that Travellers have now to be given.
How Travellers are evicted, by police and council workers
Police have no legal authority to evict but they "take the law into their own hands".
Police harassment of Travellers, arrested young Traveller and took him to Scotland to answer charges, then let him go so he has to make his own way back to London.
If something isn't done to help Travellers there is likely to be an explosion.
Travellers and mess.
Young policemen the worst.
Travellers would co-operate with councils if rubbish disposal facilities were provided.
Relationship between Gorgies and Travellers is good when they meet each other; "it's is only people who have never met Travellers who don't like us".
Travellers moved off sites which remain unused for years after,
Travellers barred out of pubs for no reason.
J C Now I first met you, what, how long ago was it, about six years?
M Mc Oh, six years I suppose.
J C Now you were then on the site on Western Avenue.
M Mc That’s right.
J C Now could you have a guess to how many sites you’ve been on since?
M Mc Oh; oh dear; hundred and fifty, maybe more since that. But settle down sites do you mean?
J C Yeah; pull ons like this.
M Mc Ah Jakers, must be every six weeks. Yeah, you can say, you can say two or three hundred sites since that. We’d move on maybe once a week, maybe again into another area; might be there six weeks, six weeks is the limit. But there was a bill passed you see, in nineteen sixty eight, to provide all Travelling People with sites; that’s the sixty eight bill, and we’re still waiting on it. ‘Tis going since nineteen sixty one and nothing done. They’ll never solve the problem, never solve it the way they’re going on.
J C What’s the longest you’ve been on a site, on one of these pull ons?
M Mc Ah well, four or five years ago, is different then ‘twas now, twelve months in the one places, six months, all that. But you see, they’ve what they call a bill now, one they get it over here in the end Jim, to ban all Travellers from London; so that’s why I was at the meeting in The House of Commons on Wednesday. If we hadn’t to be there on Wednesday they’d have that bloody extradition form, whatever they call it, and in the end you’ll have to get it; Hackney would have got it, then Bethnal Green would have got it, and ever other county ‘d have got it. So we stopped that.
J C That’s what, that’s an exemption?
M Mc Yeah, an exemption form. If they had to get it in the end Jim, we’d have all had to get out of London.
J C Yeah.
M Mc And they’re trying to get us out of London, out to the country, and if we go out to the country they put us back into London again, so we don’t really know what to do.
J C How many permanent sites are there in London, d’you know; in the London area.
M Mc Oh; there’s one in Wandsworth, one over in….. what’s the name of the place the blacksmith’s in? Ah, there’s a dozen of them there Jimmy; one in Peckham; ah, there’s ten or twelve. When they build a site it’s all the English Travellers go into it; they won’t let in the Irish; the Irish is out. That’s why I went to The House of Commons, and I went to another big major one inside again in Piccadilly Circus. But once they get it like, our spokesman, Tom Lee, he arrived here yesterday; first time I ever see him. He’s getting five thousand a year off the Government, and that’s why he came yesterday, because he heard tell about me being in the meeting in The House of Commons; that’s what brought him on yesterday.
J C I’ll talk about The House of Commons in a minute, the meeting; I want you to tell me how that came about. But first; have you any idea how many Travellers there are, Irish Travellers there are in London; or how many families?
M Mc Jay, there’d be….. at the moment now….. but you see, those are not that want to settle down, there’s five hundred now, Irish families alone, out in Dagenham. You see, those are all furniture people. And there’s people among them want to settle into a site, but there’s more of them don’t want it; that’s what they’re afraid of. Those people have got their own places back in Ireland and all. But they might shift away maybe tomorrow down to Wales, they might wind up in Scotland. You see, those people don’t want to settle down. But that’s what’s frightening the people; they imagine they have to site all those people. Those people wouldn’t live in sites. There’s only a few of us; what’ll I say, thirty families, want to settle in; that’s two little sites if they want to do it. But sure, if they build it now; all those meetings I’m going to now is only a waste of time, because if ever a site is opened up the Englishmen ‘d take over and take it in; they won’t leave in the Irish.
J C So there’s nowhere near enough adequate sites is there?
M Mc No.
J C When they set up a permanent site, what do they have to do; what facilities do they have to provide/
M Mc Sure; we don’t want any luxury at all Jimmy; we have our luxury in the caravans; all we want is a place to put it. It’s up to them to supply toilets and taps if they want; it is the law that they have to have them. But in regards to that, we lived without those things all our life; we can do it now as well. They’re talking there about expensive, expensive. The education authority supplied us with two buses; thirty eight thousand pound, and they’re only poor people; and them people can’t get no places to put the buses. And this is the council now, the new Governments and all that. Every time there’s a new election coming up they comes to see us, all right., and when the election is over we don’t see them at all then.
J C How many….. you say there’s two buses for the kids now?
M Mc Yeah.
J C And they’re having problems?
M Mc They are; there’s no place to put them.
J C No place to put them?
M Mc No; where’ll they park them? They can’t park them out there on the road, can’t put the kids to school out there on the road. Brian Foster; he’s one of them, he’s a Travelling schoolteacher; Miss Kelly. No man.
J C So ideally most Travellers would like to keep moving, wouldn’t they; they don’t want to settle; there’s only a few Travellers want to settle.
M Mc There’s only about thirty families; thirty Irish families.
J C Yeah; who would settle into a house?
M Mc Into sites
J C Into a site?
M Mc But they’re talking and all going on now since nineteen sixty one; nothing doing. They’re building bloody old sites; caretaker maybe come up from Kent; maybe up from Leeds and he’ll take over and he’ll just leave in his own family; people never in London in their life; and he’ll bring them up from Leeds and up from Kent and everywhere. There’s Tom Lee’s after doing to three places. Then there’s another feller, Nuppy Penfold; he’s running three sites. Nobody there; and there’s one Irishman in there and he paid his way; Simey Docherty, and give him five hundred quid to get in.
J C And that’s the only way you can get in to…..?
M Mc And that’s the only way.
J C So what would you like to see; what kind of site would you like to see set up?
M Mc The site I want to see….. we’ve no class distinction agin English, Irish Scotch or Welsh or whatever you like to call it; we’ve no class distinction, we don’t care who’s in the sites providing that they give us our whack. They’ve at least leave in fifteen, at least leave in five Irish Travellers. If they want five Scotch or five Welsh, whatever you want to call it, five English Travellers, we don’t mind. But when the site is opened the Englishman takes over and we’re out. And now I’m after attending meetings and meetings and meetings now, and still coming up half stoled. Tom Lee built the site over there now, he’s running three sites now at the moment, and the very minute the site was finished he was spokesman for the site. And he brought his people up from Kent, people who was never in London in their life, up to Kent to live there, his aunts and his brother-in-laws and his sister-in-laws. We’re the people doing all the fighting for the sites, and when they get them then they takes over with their own families. Same thing happened over that Nuppy Penfold, he’ve three sites, same thing happened. Roy Wells, he made a load of money and got out. Tommy Docherty, he made a load of money and got out. They’re all a crowd, Gypsy Council, Romany Guild, they’re everything, and that’s all the good they’re doing us; I don’t know what the Government is paying them for.
J C There’s no representation on any of the Gypsy sites, on any of the Gypsy Councils, of Irish Travellers; there’s no Travellers represented…… Irish Travellers represented?
M Mc No; only myself. There was seventy two head Council officials in the last meeting I was in and I was the only Irishman; that’s all that be left in there, one Irishman.`
J C Why is that?
M Mc They’ve things t say about the Irish. All right, good luck, good luck to them; and they won’t say it because the Irish is there, you see. So I was there and I told them, “Talk away with your own free will”, says I; but say I, “there’s as much villains among ye”, says I, “as there is among the Irish, and maybe more”, said I. “What do we do? We might be fond of a few pints, might go into a pub maybe, have a row; what don’t the English Travellers do; they do the same thing. I’m sure they gets into more trouble than we gets in. No, we’ve no class distinction; we’re reared among one another sure, weren’t we.
J C So would you want to see more representation on the council?
M Mc Oh Jakers yes, oh yes, by all means, why not? Jakers, I don’t know, did they serve their times in the armies and everything for them, when it’s coming up like this. Jakers, I can’t figure it out.
J C How do you get on to the Gypsy Council?
M Mc Ah, you could keep ringing The Gypsy Council there all day long, you won’t get no answer.
J C No; I mean how do you get on to the Council itself, as a representative?
M Mc I just comes; there’s friends of mine comes and brings me on to those meetings
J C It’s not elected though.
M Mc No; ‘tis Brian Foster, he’s in contact you see, and I’ve no way to contact, I’ve no phone or no address or nothing.
J C So how would it be say, if you and, say Ned, or Johnny, Johnny Dooley just went along to the meetings; would you be let in?
M Mc Oh; we’d be left in; but, d’you see, you’ve numbers, and you get your card, and they won’t get one. I got Anthony Reilly on with me here the other day, but they had eleven men in The House of Commons. But we won’t hear tell about those meetings. If Tom Lee’s having a meeting now, we won’t be left in there; we don’t even hear tell about it. Nuppy Penfold; no; they’ve their own meetings. But only for Brian Foster I wouldn’t get to see those meetings either; you’d never hear tell of them you see. You see, they are the boss; they came the boss over this caravan now; they are the boss; “We don’t want no Irish on here, we don’t want no Welsh, we don’t want no Scotch, Jakers; London Travellers.
J C So ideally, what would you like to see Mikey, in the way….. you were talking last night about a site with…… could you explain that to us, what you were talking about.
M Mc Wants a caretaker over. I can take care….. can be a caretaker this minute if I want; I can get ninety pound a week there in Shepherd’s Bush. But I wouldn’t be caretaker over no site ‘cause you make enemies for yourself. Then you are the boss. Now there’s a site now is getting built; they keeps that private and there’s an unknown feller, maybe never held a meeting in his life; Freddie something is his name. I never knew him, never saw him; and he’ll be caretaker over that now, and he’ll just leave in who he like then. Well the caretaker I’d like to see, ‘d be on the gate, and the phone number. If a man come along now with his crowd of kids and I get the caretaker, I’m not going to turn him away from the gate, cause probably, as I say, he’d never gain talk to me; might be my sister’s son, could be anybody. And the caretaker I want to see is up on the gate with his phone number on it and a lock, a barrier, with a lock on it that you can get in a lorry and out a lorry, but not a trailer. And then, if you want to get in, just ring; the phone number 'll be on the gate, and ring up that person, whoever’s responsible for it. Then everybody’ll be out of trouble.
J C You think it should be a Traveller, or do you think it should be a Gorgie?
M Mc No, no; a Gorgie’s no good to us; he don’t understand our way of life. And yet the Traveller; he won’t, he won’t….. no Traveller, any feller able to speak for himself, he won’t be caretaker ‘cause he’s making enemies.
J C Well, who should it be, because if your idea is agreed, it must be somebody, you know; it has to be either a Gorgie or a Traveller; who would you prefer in the long run to do it?
M Mc well if you’d be leave in a Gorgie, he’s going to be strict; he’s going to be like a civvy policeman. There’s a feller out here now in Romford and he’s the caretaker, and the boys can’t pull in a lorry, they can’t keep a dog, they can’t sign on the bloody dole because of the lorries; he’s gone straight away to the blower, he rings up; and they’re trying to petition all to get him out and they can’t get him out, so they’re all leaving the site; they left it. Ah, he’s gone to the law straight away out there; well what do you want a man like that over a site for?
J C So what would it have to be then?
M Mc As I said, the caretaker is on the gate; a sign up and if you want to contact him the telephone number is on; that is the caretaker. And go to The County Hall; if there’s a hundred names on, you put in your name for the site; well, split it up then, let five Irish, five English, five Scotch or five Welsh, whatever it is, mix them up; there’s going to be a site for fifteen families.
J C How would you say, you know, that mix of English, Scots….. some people have said in the past that the English and the Irish don’t get on together, or the English and the Scots don’t get on together; how do you answer that Mikey.
M Mc I’ll tell you now then. The English man; he’s as much an enemy among Travelling People, to the Scotch or to the Welsh as he is to the Irish. I’m sure there’s an awful lot of English Travellers going round that sooner have the Irish than have the Scotch or the Welsh. And there’s a…… see, when we pull in to a big ground now, we’ll say, holding a hundred caravans, well you see the Irish and the Scotch and the Welsh and they pull together, leave their trailers together like; you see the English fellers away, at that distance like, d’you know. Well we don’t mind that, but we all drink in the one pubs, everything. They’re getting married then to one another now, every day sure.
J C No difference at all?
M Mc No difference, no. That bit of a black barrier; can’t just take it away. Whatever it is I don’t know. It’s like an Irishman, he do be afraid of a snake, something like that. They still don’t ever trust the Irish.
J C Can you tell me now Mikey; this meeting you attended; tell me how it came about, right from the beginning, and tell me what happened.
M Mc First of all I was down at a meeting with Clint Davies, he’s in Hackney, he’s an M.P. of Hackney. So that was the twenty seventh of March was it? He splashed all over the paper himself, d’you see, that he’d clear Hackney of the Travellers, of the Tinkers, whatever you’d like to call us. He said, “I’ll clear it”, he says.
So when I met him at the meeting he told me they have a joint council meeting altogether, he said. “But what I have done”, he said, “I can’t undo, for the people I’ve promised”, he said, “to get all the Travellers out of Hackney”, he said, “those are the people put me in this chair”, he said. “I never sat down and had a chat with a Travelling Man”, he said, “only you”, and he said, “if I have to vote with you now”, he said, “all those people who put me in this chair”, he said, “they’ll put me back out of it”, he said, “I can’t undo”, he said, “what I’m after doing”, he said. “But what I will do”, he said, “I’ll hold a joint council meeting”, he said, “and I’ll get some of my colleagues”, he said, “to talk for you then”, he said. This wasn’t a joint council meeting; this one; Brian Foster….. this lady here rang Brian Foster (looks for letter); Patricia Hewitt, ‘twas her organised this meeting here in The House of Commons. So that’s how she gets in contact with Brian Foster for me; and that’s how that came up.
J C So she contacted Brian Foster?
M Mc Yeah.
J C And Brian Foster contacted you.
M Mc That’s it, yeah.
J C And took you along to meet the committee?
M Mc Yeah.
J C Can I just clear one thing up; how did you get in touch with Clinton Davies in the first place?
M Mc Brian Foster again.
J C Through Brian?
M Mc Yeah. He’d be four months waiting for that meeting.
J C He arranged it on your behalf?
M Mc Yeah.
J C And then finally you had a meeting?
M Mc Yeah.
J C Well he has agreed but it hasn’t come about yet, to have a meeting; to hold a meeting; a joint council meeting?
M Mc Yeah.
J C But that hasn’t happened yet, has it?
M Mc No; no. There’s going to be the big one now about Hackney. You’ve that feller down here, Beasley; Paul Beasley.
J C Paul Beasley; yeah.
M Mc Well he’s supposed to be in it, and two council men again out of Hackney; I’ve the phone number here. Bus sure, it’ll all boil down to nothing, I mean, it’ll never stand a meeting; they’ll get in there before we will. Just keep tagging along, that’s it. (Looks for letter)
J C It doesn’t matter anyway Mikey. That’s what I wanted to clear up. There’s due to be a meeting about Hackney, about the situation in Hackney; now how about the situation in the rest of London at the moment? There’s no Travellers as far as I know in Battersea.
M Mc No, none whatsoever.
J C Yeah; but they haven’t been granted a designation; or have they been granted a designation?
M Mc No, no. Islington; they’re the people supposed to make the site now, and they’re the first people went in for that form, the extradition (sic) form).
J C Designation form, yeah.
M Mc Designation form. Well if they had to get it, all London have got it.
J C Yeah.
M Mc I’m glad to say they didn’t get it anyway. If they had to get it hackney was going in next you see. See; Whitechapel would go in next; they’d all get them then you see, ‘it‘d be a law that’d be passed, and I’m glad that’s stopped anyway. They want to tell us that the countryside; that’s where we were reared. We had to stop in the countryside years ago with the horses, to feed them; now we’ve the lorries and trailers; now they’re going harassing us again with the lorries and trailers. We want to put our children to school; we just want to settle down; we’re fed up of going; I’m fifty years of age now, I’m tired of going.
J C Now this meeting that Patricia Hewitt called….. did she, at The House of Commons?
M Mc Yeah.
J C Now can you tell us what happened there?
M Mc That form that I was telling you about. He came there, d’you see, Cunningham; he came there in order to get that passed. So there was five….. there was six there altogether I think, no five, because four wouldn’t; four votes of no, they said, that came out.
J C How do you mean, four wouldn’t attend the meeting?
M Mc No, they wouldn’t sign it for him, four MPs there and they wiped it off, they said “No, no way, you can’t have that form”.
J C Oh, I see; this is the designation?
M Mc ‘Cause they have to make a site; Islington. But they asked me how long was I in this country; I told them I was in thirty years, travelled this country from coast to coast with the old horses and wagons. You know, that’s the things they’d ask you Jimmy.
Say I, “I’ve been waiting”, say I, “twenty years”, say I, “waiting on those sites and nothing yet”.
When they go to build a site they’ll build it away in a hidden place where Travellers don’t want to live. They’ll build one down at Surrey Docks now, sure, who’d live in Surrey Docks, down there? Wouldn’t let a child out on the road; nothing. Another one up on Dog Kennel Hill, you couldn’t get a lorry in to the road because of the mud, the muck; we had to pull out of it.
J C So what else was said at the meeting? They asked you questions about how long you’d been here and what were, you know, the sites you’d been on. Did they ask anything else?
M Mc They asked me were we getting harassed, and I said we are. We’ve the settled down community first, the Gorgies we call it; then we’ve the Bills, the police at the other side. We’ve the worst crowd of all now out in Silvertown, the security guards; ex-prisoners theirself, a lot of them; security guards. Then you’ve the….. I don’t know how we’re going to win; they’re at us at all sides. You’ve the Council, you’ve the police, you’ve the security guards, you’ve the public, all agin one man. How Travellers are going to win I do not know.
J C Now you told them all this?
M Mc Yeah..
J C Now did anything else happen then?
M Mc They just said, “The meeting is over now, and we’ll meet again”.
J C No date was set, there was no date set?
M Mc No; no date.
J C Now can you explain to me Mikey, what happens. You pull on a site, say like this.
M Mc Yeah.
J C What happens; right from the beginning; how do you pull on to it; how do you find, how do you find a site?
M Mc We come on in the night and we break it in; ‘cause if we’re caught breaking it in it’s a hundred and fifty pound fine; you can wind up with six weeks in prison if you’re caught. So once we get it opened and once we’re in, then you’re surrounded with the police. Hey come and raid the trailers, everything, gut your trailers and everything. And that all dies down then. They’re not going back now, the police. Check us out; where we came from, all this. Then the Council come; council give you an eviction form. The day of the court then; you’re off; you might get a week off of the court then.
J C What does the eviction form say?
M Mc The day of the court be such-and-such a date.
J C You have to attend court?
M Mc We don’t attend it.
J C Yeah, but you’re supposed to?
M Mc If we go. If we shift the court case is dropped.
J C Yeah.
M Mc But if we remain on you’ll still only get an eviction form, that they’ll evict you within twenty-one days, six days, whatever they say. But it is getting shorter and shorter. What this feller from Islington want is an eviction form straight away, that they can just come on and pull you out straight away, no time, no courts; that’s what’s this law he wanted; Cunningham. And it didn’t work I’m glad to say. He wanted to just come on and hook up his trailer onto a tractor and take it out of there.
J C Now you get the eviction form and you don’t attend the court, so what happens then?
M Mc They come on then; they tell us such-and-such a date to get out; you’ve seven days after the court to get out, fourteen days after the court to get out, so we’ve got to get out or they’ll pull us out with the tractors.
J C Now how does that happen?
M Mc The tractors lands, and police; jakers, you’d imagine the morning we’d be getting pulled out, you’d imagine there’d been a murder or something in the camp, there’d be the sound of the police; there’d be ten squad cars there for no reason at all like. One policeman ‘d do the business; I don’t know what the Government is paying them at all for.
J C What time does this usually happen?
M Mc Around seven in the mornings.
J C Always it’s first thing in the morning?
M Mc They’ll make sure they’ll have us before we go out doing work, you know.
J C And what do they do; they come on to the site and they knock on the doors or what?
M Mc Yeah; they just tell us “We’re here, you’ve got to get out now or we’ll throw you out”. We do be afraid in case they break our caravans, we pull them out ourself, pull away and look for another open ground.
J C And then you move on to somewhere else, the same thing?
M Mc Yeah. Some stupid old feller then, or maybe a block of flats, or a house maybe, just go on the blower and ring up for the Council, ring up for the police and all. It seems there’s nobody on our side.
J C Does anybody….. does somebody have to make a complaint before you’re evicted, or can the police evict you from their own bat.
M Mc No, the police can’t touch us, no, the police have no authority at all. The police, by rights, is trespassing when they come in here like we are; they’ve no authority at all, but they takes the law in their own hands, they just does it. I tell them that they’ve no authority, they have no authority to come inside that gate, this is private ground when we’re in it; this is our property here. You have as much villains among the police as you have among the Travellers.
J C What kind of …… you were talking last night about harassment from the police; what other kind, what other kind of harassment do you get?
M Mc Raiding the trailers.
John McCarthy (Mikeen’s son) John now, he was arrested for some other person’s….in Bolton (?) He’s down in Bolton and he’s no way of getting back up.
M Mc No money in his pocket.
J Mc No money or nothing. It’s the police right to bring him back up, isn’t it; they brought him down there?
M Mc They took him in yesterday, said he was wanted in Scotland, my Mike, my son there, and he was never is Scotland in his life. Only for I being there, they’d have him gone to Scotland. Never in Scotland in his life; different man altogether they were talking about. Stupid; stupid, the police.
J C So what happens; what kind of…… can you explain in detail what kind of harassment the police carry out?
M Mc Raid your trailers.
J C How do they do that?
M Mc Come in and search every bit of it. They’re after doing it three times here now. And they came up with (haps?), came up with nothing. We’ve receipts for everything we’ve there. Ah, ‘tis no good showing those receipts. You know, they’ll find a way to nick you if they can, but they can’t you see. They told me, sure, they’d find a way of nicking us, and I told them “Go ahead and do it”, say I. So they took in my Mike; I had his birth certificate and his married lines and all last night. But I’m a little step ahead of them that way like, I’ve got plenty influence you see, yeah. Jay, you never see the Travellers doing Civil Rights marches, causing strikes, nothing like that. Good luck to the people does it, maybe they’re doing that for their own good, but you never see the Travellers harassing anybody like that. Some of those people never sat down with a Travelling man in their life; all that’s in their mind is that they’re villains. Little they know, they never had a chat with one. They’re the people that’s the worst of all, the people who have never spoke to them; anything you tell them, they’ll believe it.
J C So what do you see happening now Mikey, what do you think will happen with Travellers now?
M Mc If they don’t do something, and very quick, I can see something happening now very serious. I know Travelling People; very hot tempered people, and they’ll put up with a bit of harassing all right, but don’t give them too much stick ‘cause they won’t take it. You’ll see some policeman going down; they’ll hit them, and it could be a big thing. I seen the police and the Travellers at it one time in Ireland (te); it went on for a week, and believe me, I wouldn’t like to see the like of it again. The same thing will happen. Something like happened in Brixton. We don’t want to see them things happening. See, one policeman don that in Brixton; he hit a coloured young feller. See, the same thing 'd happen with us fellers. See, one policeman done that now. My wife was looking down here, and my daughter; fifteen policemen around two little young fellers, and they beating hell out of them down there in Bethnal Green Road. All the people; the public I believe, scandalised them. Twisting their hands behind their back, beating them with batons; two young fellers. Do it take twenty or thirty police to take two young lads?
J C How do you go on if somebody says to you about, you know….. one of the big arguments against Travellers pulling on is the mess.
M Mc The mess, yeah.
J C How do you go on, how do you answer that Mikey?
M Mc That’s rubbish there now; right, all right, I does rubbish myself, but I can control it. But then you’ve got the Gorgies, you’ve everybody. We’ve no ground to stop anyone coming in here; we don’t own the ground; any lorry can come in there and I can’t stop him. You’ve more Gorgies throwing that stuff around there than Travellers. They comes in there. The police put off a Gorgie feller yesterday; he’d the load half on; they made him shovel it back up and take it out of there. Some of the police is all right you know; they’re good, they’re very good to us. It’s the young lads, it’s the young police; the old men is fine.
J C Do you think….. you know; I know that a Traveller does a valuable job if they’re doing a job like the rubbish or like the scrap, that is valuable to the economy or whatever, you know. Do you think it would help say, if the Council would agree to get rid of the rubbish, would the Travellers co-operate in say stacking the rubbish in a certain part of the site?
M Mc Yeah.
J C So that the Council could pick it up; or say there was a skip, do you think that would be…..?
M Mc Yeah, give us a site altogether and……. Leave the Council….. get into the Council tips. But those Councils, they’ll charge you as much for leaving a tipping in a tip as sometimes we’d get from an old man or woman for clearing up their place. We’re doing somebody some good you know. We’re out there….. there’s old men and old women out there and the Council won’t even come to pick up their rubbish; the boys ‘ll do it for a few quid, you see. Well, you’re on scrap, scrap is a big industry on its own you know. When you go in with one ton of scrap into a scrap yard, you’re employing at least three man. When I go out in the day with my lorry now, you’ve got the man unloading it off, and the lorry inside, he’s driving a crane, he’s hired, you’ve got the man burning it with the burners, he’s a hired man. Only for the Gypsies and their scrap and the scrap yards in England (would) have shut down. For me now like; put it like this, a ton of scrap a day is three hundred and sixty ton a year. That’s employing a couple of men a day. They say then, why don’t we work? Sure, we are working. If Gypsies all went on strike tomorrow and joined the union, there wouldn’t be a taste of scrap inside in those scrap yards, they’d all have to shut down. And they know that theirself. They want us to join a union; how can we join a union.
J C Yeah; just quickly Mikey, do you think the relationship between Gorgies and Travellers is bad or good; ordinary Gorgies and Travellers?
M Mc Very good, but you see, the problem is that people that never sits down, have a drink with them in a pub, those people don’t understand about Travellers. When they get to know you then, “Ah jakers; we thought you were this, we thought you were that”. Jay, we’re mixing with Gorgies all the time. I goes up here to the pub and I mix with all the Gorgies up there; there’s no class distinction now. It’s the fellers that don’t know the Travellers, that never met them. Well you tell them anything, they’ll believe anything because they don’t know.
J C Now the relationship between police and Travellers is bad isn’t it?
M Mc I don’t know; it’s the young police, they tend to be very cheeky and kind of giving out, you know, and kind of likes to harass the Travellers, d’you know.
J C Yeah.
M Mc But the old police, no; they know. It’s the young fellers.
J C How long do you think this is, this has been; has this always been the case?
M Mc Oh, ‘twas always like this, but ‘twas never as bad as it is now Jimmy, d’you know. Because five or six years ago you’d umpteen places in London to pull. But ‘tis getting closed in d’you see, finished, and that feller now; that MP out of Islington there, he said we have no ground in London.
“I beg your pardon”, says I to him, “I know you haven’t the time, but”, say I, “I can show you at least three hundred places in London”, say I, “all over”, say I. We left places five and six, seven years ago and they said they wanted them for buildings, and all they done is landscaped them, turned them into a bit of a green; they’re still there, no building on them, nothing; there’s still the same galvanised up; no changes. Five or six years; what happen? All that ground is still….. we pulled out and pulled back into those grounds again; they still never done nothing with them. There’s hundred and hundreds of thousands of acres of waste land in London that’ll never be used. You’ve got it right here look; you’ve this ground; you’ve three more grounds here in the back, another ground over, just across the road here. Hundreds and thousands of acres that’ll never be used. This ground we’re on here now is idle for twenty years; and the place there across the road, fifteen years, never done nothing with it.
J C The other prejudice; the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, is this business about being barred out of the pubs.
M Mc Yeah.
J C Tell us what happens there Mikey.
M Mc They puts a notice up on the door, “No Travellers”; that’s it. Well, we don’t go in there then.
J C For no reason at all?
M Mc For no reason. If you and me ‘s inside in a pub, if you get barred out of the pub there’s no reason why I should be barred as well; if you do something out the way Jimmy, there’s no reason to bar me, I didn’t do anything out the way. If one Travelling Man make a mistake at all the lot is gone, everybody out.
J C But it quite often happens that they put a notice up before any Travellers go in there.
M Mc Yeah, yea, yeah; always nearly happens.
J C Is there anything else like this Mikey, any other prejudice like this where Travellers can’t go? How about the local shops and things like that?
M Mc Ah no, nothing, no, nothing like that. Well Travellers, they do Christenings, marriages, and that’s a big thing like. Travellers comes from everywhere then, there could be five hundred Travellers there. I imagine that doing good business for the pub. They don’t want to know. You might spend all your money now at the big Christening; maybe some of those Christenings cost two thousand quid; marriage could cost a lot more, and you set up that pub, get permission off it and all that, and tell all the lay down, that there’s going to be a big crowd there and if there’s a glass broke we’ll pay for it and all this, you know. And you do all that, you keep a control kept and all because they don’t want to make any mistake like, the rest of the Travellers, they don’t want to be the man to get them all out like, so that’s why everybody watches theirself. And you spend all that money, that big Christening, there might be as much beer left in the pub ‘d make a man drunk for a month; and you go in the following morning; “Sorry, I’m not serving you no more”.
J C Why is that?
M Mc Just like that.
J C No reason?
M Mc No; they have their few little customers inside there like, their regulars, you know, and because they say they don’t want the Travellers, that’s it, that’s it; “I can’t lose my customers”; that’s the first thing he’d say. Yeah.