Tape 144   

Mikeen McCarthy  10,6,84

Contents                                                       

Guinea Hunters, “cap money”

Relationships among Travellers

Television

Buying horses recently

Dealing in scrap

"No old people to talk to"

Youngsters changing to Gorgie way of life

Travellers who marry into Gorgies move away from travelling life

Young people today proud of being Travellers

Relationships with police, harassment, buying off police

Travellers have learned to use the system

Travellers in houses

Some Travellers would not even live in trailers, prefer tents

Living in house will take 10/15 years off your life

Youngsters will have to settle in future

Police and security guards harassment

Worst place ever travelled in England in the Midlands (Brownhills)

Travellers and travelling

Travellers and crime

Travellers’ culture gone

Changes in travelling life

Gammon

Old Travellers with the tradition dying off (another Michael McCarthy)

J C        What was your last job in Ireland, you know, the one you did longest, more than anything else?

M Mc  Horse droving from fair to fair, horse dealing, you know, for other people as well as myself.  We were what they call guinea hunters.  There’d be six or eight or ten of us and maybe two of us sometimes, and we’d be in partnership.  So we’d be buying horses for other men, that’s why we were called the guinea hunters (te); we’d earn a pound and maybe two pound each, you know, for the one horse; well, whatever we’d get ‘d be between us all like, you know; what they call cap money (te); cap money we used call it, you know.

J C       Why did they call it cap money?

M Mc  Well when you’d be finished like, selling the horse, buying him, whatever you’d be doing like, well the man you’d buy him off of, he’d always give you, we’ll say ten bob; the man that’d buy him, he’d treat you, give you ten bob or a pound, d’you know.  So ‘twas later in the years I took up that; I used be a tinsmith; as I said before, I was a street singer, I was everything; but that was my last occupation, horse dealing.  You’d stand of a fair like, in the morning, you’d be in at five o’clock in the morning; you’d be there before all the dealers.  We’d be working for the one man; it was same as having a job; you’d be dealing for the one man; he could be an English man, he could be a North of Ireland man; you’d be working for him; he’d know that; he wouldn’t come to the fair till maybe ten, eleven o’clock, and we’d have all the stock bought for him, and he’d give all our purchases like, as I said, ten bob to a pound maybe, each….. not each.  We’d have all the horses, ready, might have thirty, forty, sixty horses bought; that might be between maybe three, four, six of us, it could be an amount of us like, depending on how big the fair was going to be.  Well he’d arrive by car then, so he’d have nothing to do, we’d even load them for him before…… There was no trains then leaving that fair, well, we’d drove them by night on to another fair and meet him the following morning there, d’you know; maybe two days.  If he’d a big lorry we’d load them on to the lorry for him; if there was a train available in the same place we’d put them on to the train for him; we used do all that.  If we were to meet him the following day in another fair we’d look after the horses all night that night, put them into school yards, in to farmer’s fields and we’d have them out before the farmer’d be up in the morning.  And we’d take care of them just as they were like our own.  So the men we used deal for then in this country, well, when I come over to England then, I knew those men, so that’s where I hit for, to those men again, then round the Midlands, Birmingham mostly.  And when I got off in Birmingham like, I was like a stranger, but I enquired for those men that I used to work for; so I worked for them there again all over Birmingham, the Midlands.  We’d be going down to Wales buying the pit ponies and if a circus came to town we’d start exchanging horses with circuses like, and all that, you know.  We used to go to Stowe Port, that was a big fair, all those fairs.  But I used to be working with the one men the whole time in this country, the same as I worked for in Ireland.  So we were very loyal like, d’you know.  We’d get up in the morning now in Birmingham and they’d call along, those we worked with, those horse dealers, and they’d bring me off to fairs.  I found no difference dealing in this country as I did in Ireland; I did the same thing all over again; it’s just that the money was a bit bigger in this country, d’you know.

J C       What kind of men were they; were they big farmers, small farmers or what?

M Mc  They were farmers, yeah; they were horse dealers.  You’ve farmers never keeps cattle, all horse trade; you’d the same men in this country; I don’t like mentioning no names like, but you’d them all the same, you know.  In fact when I went looking for one feller, he gave me his land to pull into and all, gave me two keys and a lock into his farm; jay, it was wonderful like, and if there’s nothing to do I go off and look after his horses all day long.   I could have had the job all the time; I wouldn’t stay on my own with the children and Nonie like; I could have been there as long as I wanted.  There’s another man bought a farm down in Worcester; I could be down there, I could be in there with the last thirty years if I wanted to.

J C       Was the relationship with Gorgies then better than it is now?

M Mc  Well why it was better ‘cause you were left stop longer.  It’s like here; the relationship here with the Gorgies now is marvellous, now we’re just getting to know one another, now we have to move again.  So you just don’t get a chance to know.  There’s pubs round here now, jakers, we could stop there till two, three o’clock in the morning if we want. d’you know.   ‘Twas up here in the paper about getting a petition, letters in here to get us out of here, six hundred petitions supposed to be; it wound up about two..  There must be at least fifty, sixty, seventy people came in here, in here, people I never seen in my life; we’d nothing to do with it, none of our business, you know.  Down in the pub every feller walking over shaking hands with me, “Nothing to do with it; ‘tisn’t down to our street; they came around, we wouldn’t sign nothing”, d’you know.  That amount of people coming in here apologising that they’d nothing to do with it.  In fact there was one feller in the paper, he just lives here; Gorgies wanted to bring me up to his house.  “No”, said I, “that’s his life; I leave the man his opinion of me himself”.  In fact then he might be the good man after, which often happened.  Leave the man settle down, you know.  You’d be amazed al the people came in here apologising, that it was nothing to do with them; even to a black man we had in the Council yard here; they’re shop stewards; they came over here.  I said “There’s thirteen of us; we’re capable of running a thousand men”, they said; “if you want all our support you’re welcome to it, and come over to the Council yard any time you want”, they said, “and we’ll support you”.  “No”, said I, “thanks, we’ll carry on”, said I to him, d’you know.

J C       When do you think it all started changing Mikey, the old way of life started going?

M Mc  It’s the bloody televisions did it; they’re writing up those things.  You listen to them; it must be on the television once a week, all about Gypsies, that’s where they learn from.  And now it’s like a feller singing, coming number one on the hit parade in the songs; when one starts they all sings the same song, d’you see.  (Laughter)  ‘Tis easy arouse them like.  There was people there yesterday at that meeting; I don’t think they ever met a Travelling Man in their life.  Ah, I’ve several meetings down here with Hackney with the M.Ps of Hackney man, the new feller, he belong to Bristol, he’s a rugby player, he’s about six foot four.  I saw him; “I never saw a drunken fool in my life”, say I; “no wonder the Houses of Parliament is falling down”, say I.  (Laughter)  He’s falling over the floor and he drinking pints of Guinness, yeah.

J C       When you came over here you say you did dealing, horse dealing.  When did that start to change, when did you start doing other jobs?

M Mc  We took on to scrap iron then, because scrap was going very well; those air raid shelters, we started at them, we were getting an awful price for them, thirty three pound a ton that time.  We must have taken every air raid shelter that was in Slough that time, by the tons, by the hundreds.  There was a crowd of us together, partnership; jakers, we cleaned up; we were selling them in the (????) that time, thirty three pound a ton like, we were cleaning up.  We’d a big ten ton wagon, there was four of us used to work together, you know.  We still was on the horse trade like, we still wouldn’t pass a horse today, not even that time; we’d still buy a horse, but not the same…...  There was unnecessity work; horses is different to anything else; to be a horseman you have to be up at five o’clock in the morning, you have to be with them until….. the last thing you have to see at night is a horse, ‘cause they’d be stolen, everything‘d happen, you know.  I’d be still on horses but there was two stolen on me out there in Southall, two; one after another.  I bought a horse the other day there in Roman Road; she was a lovely one, a palomino, I was getting fifty pound profit on her and I wouldn’t sell her, inside in the pub.  I had her about a week and those fellers come along and said, “Your horse is going to be nicked, going to be nicked”, you know, which would happen.  Ah, I heard she was going to be nicked this time anyway, say I, I sold her back to another feller; I lost seventy quid on it; says I, “some money’s better than none”.  (Laughter)  You’d never again see her, see.  But that wasn’t to do with it; it just died away like any other occupation, just died.

J C       It died?

P Mc   But about what time was that Mikey; when?

M Mc  Well, in Ireland now like, the marts took over, they’re called marts; you don’t have to have them in a fair.  If you want to sell a big fat horse now, any horse, in Ireland, you just put him on the train, send on a letter before, the horse is weighed, wherever you send them, the men is there to take them off of the train, they send you back a cheque, so much a hundredweight.  There’s no need of catching a horse now in Ireland and roding him on maybe ten, fifteen miles on to a fair.  If you want to sell him to the mart, the fact is you just put him on the train and send him on.  And the marts then took over; you put him in by auction, so there was no need for us guinea hunters any more like, no need for us. 

J C       So when you went into scrap, was it out of choice or was it because the other work was going or what?

M Mc  There was more money then in scrap, the horse trade died off like, it went.  It didn’t die off but you’d have one man, he’d deal in all bloodstock; meet another man, he’d be dealing in all half blood; then you’d meet another man for the heavy horses, which if there was one of each you wouldn’t buy them at all, he’d either buy one out of the three we’ll say, ‘cause they finding it easier living with theirself as well.  ‘Cause in Ireland the Englishman‘d bring….. cousins of mine now in Ireland, they’d say, “I want six or twelve ponies, light ones”; but he’d work the year around until he get what he wanted, six, or twelve, maybe twenty.  Well there was no need for us fellers around then like because he might buy them in one fair until he get a set, what they call a set together.  And that’s how we lost it.  Any time, you could in one time and deal in donkeys, jennets, anything at all; you’d a customer for everything.  That all died away then.  Then we started at the scrap then in this country, then, when we went back to Ireland we kept on the scrap again behind.  We were still dealing in the one horse, then we were dealing in traps, horse traps, harness, but they’re all gone now, we can’t get any.

J C       What other changes were happening then Mikey?

M Mc  When the horse drawn wagon went, gone into those trailer caravans; the motor cars was first, they were the first ruination of Travelling People.  Then the trailers came; well then, you had a choice then, you either keep the motor or keep the horses, one of the two, you couldn’t keep the two together because you’d wear out the motor and after the horses.  You’d be in it with no living.  ‘Twas either one of the two, you either keep the horses or else keep the car.  So then, they decide when they got the motor and they got trailers, then you could see all the wagons getting sold then, and the horses.  My old man said, God have mercy on him, he said, “They are the first ruination”, he said, “of Travelling People”; all the old men said it.  And they were.  That time you couldn’t sleep till nine o’clock in the morning; you’d have to be out at five; that’s how the people were so healthy and so happy, you know.  That was their life, maybe ten, fifteen men going off together looking after a horse, conversation and jumping and running and we’d be wrestling and tripping one another and blaggarding, you know, ah.  We often stopped up all night minding the horses; conversation; here was no wirelesses at that time or no televisions; we’d be up all night watching the horses, and we’d be….. conversation would go on through the night; singing and telling jokes and all this crack, d’you know; they were marvellous.  There are no times now; you go out there now; you won’t see a Travelling man standing.  There’s only one old man, old Johnny Keiley; an aged man like me like. No one used to chatter, so I goes to the pub.  (Laughter)  I left this pub down here today and went up to this one on the corner; there must be fifteen young fellers, all Travelling young fellers; “Oh jay”, I say, “what brought me in here”, and I walked away out of it, I couldn’t listen to them. (Laughter)  It changed like.  They’re changing, every one, into the Gorgie way of life, you know.  Jay ‘tis….. and I still can’t understand it.  (Laughter) 

J C       Did your relationship with Gorgies change?

M Mc  ‘Tis up to the man himself.  There’s….. if we sit down there in a pub now, it’s the Gorgies comes to us, you know, because if a conversation start; you tell them something, well he’s going to tell another feller above at the counter, ‘cause I’m after telling him something and he’s on down.  D’you know, we started doing tricks or something, they all get their round like, then the crack happens, see.  No; it did change for a while all right, it did change for a while, with those bloody television things.  But then the Gorgie man settled down, he said to himself, he said, “Those different people”…  In Ireland now the Gorgies are changed around to the Travellers, the Travellers after changing over to Gorgies.  I found an awful change in that the last time I was back because there’s an awful lot of Travellers now married into Gorgies.  You see, back around Killarney now they’re manning the garages, more of them are guards, police we call them.  They’re in Australia, central Australia now, yeah; they’re all over the country.  There’s one of them the Chief of Police in New York; Thomas O’Brien, yeah.  Yeah, he was reared under a tent and he joined the navy; he came captain over a ship; he’s six foot six.  Came captain over a ship; you could see all his things behind his mother’s house.  Then he joined the police in New York; now he’s chief of the police.  He’s still not forty years of age.

J C       Was there always marriage with Gorgies in the pat?

M Mc  Ah, there was back through the years Jimmy, back through the years; but that time, when they’d marry into the Gorgie, they wouldn’t know any more like, they didn’t want to know, didn’t want to leave people know they were Travellers, you know.  We’d know; my mother used to know, but she’d never tell anybody, you know.  ‘Tis a funny thing about it, if it came to one of those houses, my mother, God have mercy on her now, she’d pass that house.  I often said, “Why don’t you go in there”, d’you know.  No; she’d know people‘d be married in there; she wouldn’t.  There was more, and they go married and they came away to England.  I heard one Gorgie feller saying one day to my father he was getting married into a Travelling Girl.  “Ah”, he said, “when we get married we’ll go away to England”.  “Have you to go to England”, says my father, “because you’re marrying a Travelling Girl?”

“Ah, nobody’ll know nothing over there”, says he.  So my father….. “If I was you I wouldn’t marry her”, says he, “if that’s your opinion about Travelling People”, he said, “and if I was her I wouldn’t marry you either”, he said.  “Have you to go to England over marrying a Travelling Girl”, he said, “Do you feel that ashamed of us”, said my father?  “Oh yeah, then why do you go”, he says, my father; “if I was her I wouldn’t marry you”, he said; “if I was you I wouldn’t marry her either”.   The man never did go to England.  “Yerra, everybody in this town know who she is and know who you are”, he said, “why go to England?”  The man never went to England; he did not.

J C       Do you think that’s the thing that’s happening now, that the younger Travellers don’t want to be identified with Travellers?

M Mc  No, they problem now is the younger race is different.  There’s four of them after getting married Gorgie girls already now; four young fellers.  Now they went in to live in flats, houses, and one of them is after buying a trailer today, him and her, and after coming out; that’s one; and the rest is falling out now again, you see; the girls is mad about it.  The old man over there; jakers, he can’t understand his girl at all, you know.  (Laughter)  “She don’t know anything about….. she’s learning”.  The mother says, the boys mother, “Ah jay, she’d doing it all wrong”, he’’ be watching her anyway.  She don’t know anything about travelling life you see, but she’s learning.

J C       How about things like your relationships with the police and things like that?

M Mc  Police are after changing altogether Jimmy.

J C       They changing?

M Mc  They’re after changing altogether.

J C       In what way?

M Mc  Oh; no more harassing; none of that, no, none of that.  We can just walk into a police station like, and they come in here, we have the authority to tell them to get outside the gate.  They have to do their duties, nobody can stop them doing that, but that can’t come harassing, no more of that, that’s finished.

J C       When did that stop?

M Mc  It’s only happened there with the last three months.  There’s a policeman now and he comes to the meetings with us, and he’s writing out leaflets and he’s putting them in every police station; that he’s following the history of Travellers, and that’s what he’s doing.  Now he’s writing out all leaflets and putting them in every police station; they go into the history of Travellers.  If you go in to those policemen there they don’t know what to do for us.  In fact it’s a way better than the Gorgies, you know.  All have a shot like; well, we have the best solicitor in London anyway, we have the top, number one; he’s the best solicitor in London.

J C       Who’s that?

M Mc  Norman Bell, Norman Bell is his name; he’s a marvellous man.

J C       At the time you were horse trading and tinsmithing and things Mikey, what were the police like then, in Ireland?

M Mc  They were all right; they’d want to get to know you; they’d want to know you.  They were ignorant like they were in England.  They’d come along one time in England here, and the same as Ireland, and I don’t say because we were Irish, they’d treat every Gypsy man, diddycoy, pikey, tinker, whatever you are, they’d treat everybody the same way, just as if we were filth; come in and ransack everything you have and tear all around the place, breaking the windows of your caravans; and the council was as bad, council come on there and tow out a very valuable and tear the jacks out of it; just back in, put a chain around and on it’d go, give you no law, ‘cause there’d be ten police to every one; oh, they did all that; but it had to come to an end, d’you know; they were devils of people.  Police come on there six o’clock in the morning, which they shouldn’t be on duty at all, come along with their baton man and they’d hammer in the doors of the caravans, denting them all.  People give up having good caravans over it.  The council used do the same, many the good caravan was wrecked; the jacks torn out of her and losing hundreds of pounds that time.  They didn’t care what they do.  I never spoke agin police; I do be at Labour Party meetings; they’re crying out to be go agin police; I wouldn’t, I never did, which I could if I want.  They know that now, they know the power is there, they know, they’re clever people.

J C       So when was this, that they used to act like that?

M Mc  Oh, that’s not too long ago, that’s only four or five years ago; they were the hottest part of Great Britain, this Whitechapel Road, the police out of Bethnal Green.  There must be three hundred of them raided our trailer, took away eight men, took away everything they had, which they never seen no more, generators, motor bikes belonging to the kids, cassettes, took the lot, they never got them back.  Some of them was on remand; they were never tried for anything; some of them were on remand for four and five, six days, and nothing to charge them with, but they never saw their stuff back or anything.  But today them police don’t do that now, today you don’t see them at all.  They useden’t leave the gaff, yeah.  All over England was the same, never bigger gangsters than the police in the words of Travellers.  We used pay them off.  Well, the policeman you’d pay off, he was a good policeman ‘cause you knew where you were, you knew where you stood.  The feller who wouldn’t accept money, that’s the feller we’d want to watch.

J C       But that was done was it, paying up?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh jay, oh yeah.  That’d still happen if we wanted to do it.  We never liked paying up.

J C       Why do you think it changed then, why do you think their attitude changed?

M Mc  They know the Travellers have power now, they know.  You see, if I wanted to now, which I wouldn’t do, I’d just go there to the phone and I’d ring up the newspaper people, they’d land here right at the gate within an hour.  If I want television people, they’ll arrive there within an hour.  If I want radio people, they’ll land there within an hour; anything I want if I want.  If the police come here and start harassing, well I’ll just go there on the phone; within twenty minutes they’ll have them there at the gate waiting on them.  See; they know I know them things now.

J C       So do you think that their sort of attitude is changed ‘cause you have learned to sort of stand up for yourself for Travellers?

M Mc  Yeah, well, without the power you couldn’t do nothing.  We have power now, which we never had; they’re crying out for it like, d’you know.  We have power; they’re not getting paid anything for it, they’re good people, settled down community.  I’ve dozens of people I could ring, and if they’re not strong enough, they’ll ring somebody else, they’ll bring more power with them; so the police can’t get….. well, there’s no way of stopping them doing their duty, they’ve got to do that, that’s what they’re getting paid for,  But they’re passing it out sometimes, they does unnecessary things sometimes.  All we have to do now if a policeman do the wrong thing, just take his number.  Bang, bang, on the phone, give out his number; you won’t see him round again.

J C       Are all the Travellers….. is that the case with all the Travellers now, not just the Irish?

M Mc  Oh, every Traveller is treated the same way with the police, of yeah; I can’t ever say there was discr…..  What drew the discrimination among Travelling people, English and Irish crack?  That’s the most stupidest thing I ever heard.  There was fights in it, because we got bad feeling agin one another.  It’s like me now; if I get a site out of here; if I got a site out of here I wouldn’t take it ‘cause the rest of the Travellers might say, “Oh, that’s what he’s working for, for himself”.  I got that one in Bow; I wouldn’t take it; I got another one in Sidcup, I wouldn’t take it; I was getting caretaker outside in Westways, I wouldn’t take that, you know.  Caretaker’s a funny job; you have to pick your Travellers then like.  I was getting a job, liaison officer, like Brian Foster is now, I was getting that job, I wouldn’t have it, ‘cause alright, say there’s fifteen, twenty trailers say now, and the council come along to me tomorrow, they say, “We’ve a site up her now for six families, you pick the six families”; how am I going to pick them?  Your man saying to me yesterday, “Do you want that job”, he said, “what I have, I don’t want it”, he said to me, “would you take it”.  “No”, said I, “I don’t want it either”.  (Laughter)   Ah, I was in Cork in Ireland (te).  That’s the first house that was give out to Travelling People in Ireland, I got it, in Cork City, ‘cause they wanted to get me off of their back.  “No”, said I, “I don’t want it”; and I did want it very badly.  “If I take that house now”, says I, “what will the rest of the Travelling People here say.  Say I, “At least house six of them first”, say I, “then I’ll get one”.  So that’s what they did.  Say I, “I don’t mind one now and again”, staying in one now and again, staying in another one, looking for quiet place to put them.  Said I, “You’ll never fix it that way”, said I, “get them in with the public, fight fire”, say I, “with fire”.  They did, they stuck them in here and there; so they give me a house then; I took it; I only lived in it about a year; the call of the wild come again, I had to move on, they all moved on.  (Laughter) 

J C       Why do you think that is Mikey; why don’t you think that you or other Travellers won’t settle in a house?

M Mc  You couldn’t.  It’s like you, putting you in prison Jimmy; you couldn’t do it; same thing.  A house is a lovely thing to have I mean, but we just couldn’t do it; it’s not our way of life, d’you see.  There’s men wouldn’t live in this trailer, they’d sooner have tents on the ground.  There’s different Travelling Man; they’re still going.  There was men; I remember men having them horse drawn wagons; they couldn’t sleep in them; they were used to a tent on the ground.  They’d have the horse drawn wagon but they wouldn’t sleep in it..  There’s a crowd of our Travelling People back in Ireland, the Corcorans, and they’re very wealthy people; they deal in trailer caravans, horse drawn wagons, they deal in them, and those people have the Shelta tents on the ground, they wouldn’t use them, they sill have them and they wouldn’t sleep in a caravan or a trailer or anything.  They’re used to the Shelta tent on the ground; you’d see them there in them books, Shelta tents; they wouldn’t sleep in them.  (Laughter)

J C       How do you feel in a house Mikey?

M Mc  Any old Travellers that go into a house, it’s taking ten, fifteen years off of their life, it is.  It’s like the horse dealers; I remember the old horse dealers, they died young men.  I used see them over here; when that trade died then like, and their sons took them to England; I used to see them old men and they used to have no one to chat to, no one to talk about dealing or anything; I often see them with a few pints, I often watched them.  There was an old pub, specially in Birmingham, and I used see the old men above at the fire, if he was on his own, or they got fed up of conversation with one another, yeah, they’d above and they trading to theirself, to be dealing away to theirself, nothing at all.  (Laughter)  They’d be fighting with theirself and all man.  (Laughter)  You’d call them at twelve o’clock at night, one o’clock, two o’clock, any hour; they’d get up out of that bed and they’d go into action for  half a crown, no shoes, tying up their braces on them, for maybe half a crown or five bob, just to be in it.  (laughter) 

J C       So there’s no way you could live in a house?

M Mc  I’d live in it for the winter, I couldn’t Jimmy, couldn’t do it, no, not now.    An old man up here, he’ve a bad old heart now, Johnny Keiley, old man of seventy and his wife; jeez, wouldn’t a house be a lovely place for him; no, he couldn’t do it, and his wife, can’t do it, you know.  And that old Dunnan Younger, he’s down there now; oh jakers, I’m sure that house is going to fall down on him, he’s cursing it every minute.  (Laughter) Down the new site; “What brought me in her; I’ll kill that son of mine”.  You go down ten times a day to visit him; “Ah, you don’t come near me at all”, he’ll say. (Laughter)

J C       How about the kids Mikey; the youngsters among Travellers settling; do you think they’ll?

M Mc  The way things is going they’ll have to settle; it’s this moving around, that’s what finished them, that’s what drove them out, they got sick; they don’t want to be in any houses.  Any of them that lives in houses now, well, they’re out here all the time, they’re out among the Travellers all the time, you know, the house is left, they sleep in the trailers at night and all that; they’re in the houses but they don’t want to be in them, they’re in them agin that way.  

J C       Can you ever see a time when….. imagine a time when there’ll be no Travellers Mikey?

M Mc  No; there’ll always be Travellers, always, there always will be Travellers no matter what way they suffer, they’ve suffered harder than this and they kept on to it; they’re not suffering now; they did suffer, then they kept on to it.  They still stayed there just for the sake of travelling, that was all.  Sure, they could have houses years ago and they wouldn’t; they’d sooner get towed round the country, from place to place.  I see there only just a few year back, the time my Peggy got married there; two weeks, all we get staying was the night, we’d have to go in the morning, six o’clock, nowhere to pull to, police trailing us from place to place, out around East Ham; security guards, convicts theirself, they put them on watching us, pulling their cars across the road, having Alsatian dogs, blocking the gaps, wouldn’t leave us out, you know; putting skips across the gaps.  Those security guards all gangsters theirself, villains; you couldn’t put your finger near one, you know, you’d get arrested like.  Ah, ‘twas the same as shoving a policeman or a thing like that.  Once they got that uniform on there; convicts theirself; ah.  So that’s the way we were; fighting four wars at the one time; the police, the security guards, the settled down community, the council; how we survived |I do not know.  (Laughter) 

J C       In all the time you’ve been on the road Mikey, when do you think was the worst time?

M Mc  ‘Twas never really bad like; ‘twas never really; after a storm come the calm; we’d find a place to pull, we could be there then for months; we’ll be all happy again then.  But the worst was in the Midlands one time; it got that bad that we used to have to go to the cafes for our dinner just keep moving.  We came on to a roundabout out near Brownhills and there was that many trailers, we blocked off the motorway, couldn’t get in or out.  We came to a roundabout, just blocked it off, we couldn’t reverse, we couldn’t turn round, we couldn’t do nothing, and that went on for miles, you know; there was that many trailers moving at the one time, hundreds.  We just held them….. had to leave the lorries there and trailers, jumped into the café; the police couldn’t do nothing about them; ‘twas just a blockade, finished.  It took us hours and hours; once they got one lorry and trailer moving then, they had to open the motorway, kind of, to get us through, to get us on again.  Hundreds of us.  But that was sickening that time like.  Ah, we’d ways of beating them, you know.  As I say, to know history you have to live with it; we knew, we had to live with it.

P Mc   If there were enough sites, Mike, for all the Travellers to have, you know, a permanent stopping place; how often do you think most people would move?

M Mc  Such as me now, my age; I wouldn’t move at all, the younger race would.  If there was transit sites now, we’ll say in Cardiff, in Wales, in the Midlands, yeah, that’d be nice; I’d go on down there for the summer, go on out to Kent, yeah, we’d go down and do a bit of fruit picking, apple picking, or something like that.  But sure, you have to know no where you’re going; is there a place down there to stay, that’s the first thing you’re going to say, you know.  See, you’ll just pull on there, you mightn’t get stopping, you might have to come back up again.  You’ve got to know that there’s a place there to stay before you move at all.  You want to find out what way the police are there, are they hot on tax and insurance and all that.  Well, we’re used to that; police will come when you do pull in; they’ll check you right out like.  After that then, you’re all right.  If there’s anything in it they’ll find out like.  There’s none of us really wanted; all little minor things such as produce a note, tax and insurance, all that, that’s the only things that’s agin us; fines, we might be caught for breaking and entering into a place like; happened to me, I was two days in prison, I was fined a hundred pound as well.  Well that’s breaking and entering, that’s an offence.  If I’m caught again now I get prison; it’ll be the second time.  Eric Blackburn….. the most of us, the most of us now can’t open a place to pull in, we make sure that somebody have to do it first, that he’s not wanted, you know.  Sure ‘tis me now; Eric Blackburn, ah, a crowd of us, if we’re got now it’s prison the next time.  Get prison for trying to protect your children; get them off of the main road; you get prison for doing a thing like that.

J C       Do you think travelling life has changed for better or for worse Mikey?

M Mc  It’s better one way, it’s worse another way.  The culture’s gone from the Travellers, well how Travellers has gone and the culture’s gone.

J C       How do you mean by the culture?

M Mc  You don’t see them doing anything like the old men used to do long ago; we’ll say sitting down making flowers, tables, all that crack like; you don’t see the crack (te).  Inside in a pub, like long ago, you’d see a crowd of old Travelling Men long ago inside in a pub when the Gorgies enjoy chatting, listening to them, you know; you don’t see that now sure.  They’re playing pool now, snooker, all that crack, d’you know.  They’re changing every day into Gorgies, all the rest in travelling.  They dresses like them sure.  Even to the young girls; you meet the young girls, she don’t be known from Gorgie girls, the way they dresses.   The boys are the same.  My boys there now, they won’t go out without their new shirts and things; if there’s a speck of dirt on them they won’t go to no dance sure; all this crack;  (Laughter) not like me and my two odd socks  (Laughter)  The old Travelling men, they’ve a wardrobe full of suits and no, they wouldn’t wear them; they’d feel out of place like, you know.

J C       What else is gone then Mikey; what else is changed?

M Mc  That’s it, the horse trading is gone; you show a young feller around there a horse now, he wouldn’t go near him, he’d be afraid of him, d’you know, they wouldn’t know.  You could show them a set of harness; they wouldn’t know the winker from the collar; they wouldn’t know the collar from the hooves, anything like that, they wouldn’t know nothing; only all those motors, fast cars; they’d make a laugh out of you if they saw you bring the horse in there now, young fellers.  I’d bet if you caught a horse by the head and you don’t tell him, tell him with the horse (???)…….  Like having an Alsatian dog.  (Laughter)   It’s all changed.  You’d see the old Travellers now having all this cut glass, all this in the trailer, that’s dying now, that’s gone; they’re selling them now, they don’t want them, yeah.  She’ve some there now, they’re under the bunk, you never see them.  She sold some the other day, her sisters, they’re all selling them; they don’t want the bother of cleaning them and all this crack, and keeping them, you know.  Valuable stuff; that’s going to go; all you’ll see up in the windows when it’s on, is buckets and churn cans and all this, anything useful.

J C       You say there’s change for the better and for the worse; in what way has it changed for the better?

M Mc  For the better like, I hope (te) that it is going to come that people will get stayed and that the young people today, that they’re different to us.  They’re inside in the pub, they’re in with the Gorgies, they’re playing pool, they’re in snooker matches.  Such as John Driscoll and Biddy now;  they have their photo taken with Hurricane Higgins, Bruno, Frank Bruno the boxer, and all those.  You know, they drink in the same clubs where they go, you know, they’ve all their photos taken with those blokes like.  And those blokes know who they are; Travellers, it’s nice to speak to a Traveller and all this, d’you know.   taken with those blokes like.  And those blokes know who they are; Travellers, it’s nice to speak to a Traveller and all this, d’you know. You know, if you see Frank Bruno now at the side of my daughter Biddy, and he’s trying to stoop down, the way he is like, having his head, trying to keep level with her.  (Laughter)  Hurricane Higgins and John Driscoll; the two of them drunk. (Laughter)

J C       How about the language Mikey; how about Gammon, is that gone?

M Mc  They have it; well, not the whole way; you can speak to them inside in a pub now, they know the short words, but there’s a lot they don’t.  You could speak it now; a lot of it; they’d know parts of it like, certain parts of it.  It’s the way their fathers and their mothers speak to them like, when they were babies, d’you know; they don’t know the whole lot.  They know a lot of it like, but not it all, d’you know.  Such as police now, police come as shades; or if the do anything wrong in a pub you say “stall, nanty”, you know, they know that, if they’re doing wrong, they know that like, all this crack, you know.  If you want money you’ll say; if you’ve run out of money you’ll say, “Have you any grade”, you see, they know that.  You don’t want a Gorgie to know like, did you ask for money off him.  You could always say “slip me a slim, a nuem, a pound”, a thing like that you know, they know all them things.  If you want them to get you a drink like, “bug me a gatt”, you know, that’s saying, “give me a drink”.

J C       How extensive was the language Mikey; you couldn’t hold a full conversation in Gammon without using English words, could you?

J C       No, there was “the” and there was “this”, there was no gammon for them things like, “for” and all that, you know.   You’re speaking to the young fellers now like; they’ll listen to you; they’ll often ask me and their father now like, they’ll be listening to that, d’you know, they’d like to know what type of man was their father and he young and all this crack, d’you know, how long we were together; d’you know, they’re really interested like, the young fellers, they’re good in their own way, all the young lads.  If they’re inside in a pub now, they won’t pass you; they’ll buy you a pint and all that crack, d’you know; sit down alongside you for a minute, you know.

P Mc   But there’s none of them at all, is there, who are interested in the songs and stories?

M Mc  No, no; if I sang a song inside in a pub now, they’d all listen, but they wouldn’t sing one; they’d listen all right, d’you know.  Or if I’m telling a story they’ll listen, because they’ve none.  It’s like the fast cars; if they’re telling a story now, they tell it in a minute, gone.  If you tell anything long they don’t want to listen, you know (Laughter)

J C       How many of the older people still around in England, would you say, could remember some of the stories, or some of the old ways, the way you have, because you’ve given us a lot of stuff?  Are there many/

M Mc  There’s an old guy; he’s in here, he’s about seventy.  Well that’s what I was saying to myself the other night; well a lot of the men of sixties is after dying; this feller’s about sixty five, seventy I suppose.  So I just said it the other day to Michael Casey out there, says I, “he’s the last now, of those fellers now”; because there’s things I want to ask him myself; if he go I won’t know; relations and all that, you know, so I have to get in there some night to see him.  I’ll find out where he’s living.  He told Michael Casey to bring me in, well him and his wife is still alive and he’s not well either.  And jay, say I, if he goes, says I, there’s things I want to find out, say I, and I won’t find out myself; I’ve no other one to find out from if he die like.

J C       Would he have the stories?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh yeah.  Well I’ll go and see him first Jimmy because I would like to meet him anyway.

J C       What name is he Mikey?

M Mc  Michael McCarthy again; he’s about seventy.  Oh, this town is not short of Michael McCarthys.  There must be at least eight, eight Michael McCarthys here now, aside me here.