Dogwash

Laban's piece on the enslavement of vulnerable derelicts by the "travelling community" reminds me of a a programme I heard on the steam wireless a few months ago. Simplest I think to copy the BBC's summary across,

A new series of The Choice begins this week with the story of Mikey Walsh.

He grew up in the closed world of the Romany gypsies.

Rarely at school, he seldom mixed with anyone outside his community with its colourful characters and strict family code. And despite its violence and hardships, it was the life that Mikey loved.

Eventually he was faced with the agonising decision of whether to turn his back on everyone and everything he knew .....and face an alien world with no education and support... knowing he would never be able to return.

Mikey, it turned out, was gay. His father attempted to beat and humiliate this "weakness" out of his son, who eventually ran away with a casual gay lover who soon abandoned him. Mikey eventually found his feet in the outside world and was even eventually reconciled with his father.

Quite a sympathetic story and I found myself wishing the young man well.

But one thing stuck in my mind. Mikey's father made his living by the tarmacking scam. He was apparently entirely sanguine about this, happily cheating and threatening pensioners out of their meagre savings. Even Mikey himself accepted this without demurral.

My experience of the "travelling communities", Romany and Tinker, has been that they regard the "settled community" as stupid prey animals to be exploited. Without mercy.

They hold us in contempt. I have to say that I am inclined to reciprocate the sentiment. Fuck 'em.



Update (12th at 08:00)

The local MP is calling for "us" to be the eyes and ears of the police. Erm, three small points.

1. No member of the settled community is going to get anywhere near enough a criminal pikey encampment of this nature to see anything suspicious.

2. If you are close enough to spot something dodgy and you grass the bastards up, they will find out and your life will be literally over.

3. In any case, have you not noticed that pikeys are a designated victim group? If you grass them up or are otherwise disobliging about their activities, you will probably be done for racism.