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.
