"Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (GRTHM) started in 2001 in Brent and in 2008 it was celebrated across the country with backing from the government. GRTHM is an important opportunity for communities to celebrate their heritage and for everyone to learn about the history, achievements and cultures of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers."
Here is Calum Smith's take on the "tinkers" of Lewis, 1956 vintage:-
A Place In The Sun?
In Violet Jacob’s
poem [The Lad ‘i the Muin] the lad who is looking out of the window at the moon
and who feels the call of the open road, says:–
“When I’m as big as
the tinkler-man
That
sings i’ the loan a’ day.
I’ll
bide wi’ him in the tinkler-van
Wi’
a wee-bit pot and a wee-bit pan;
But
I’ll no tell Grannie my bonnie plan,
For
I dinna ken what she’ll say.”
But the days when
there was any romance for a lad in the prospect of living in a van with a
tinker-man are fast disappearing, and in this part of the world they have gone
altogether. The “old order” has changed and, unfortunately, the new is, so far,
shoddy by comparison.
I
am one of those fortunate people who have the honour, because of beneficial
experience, of being able to wear the same “old school tie” – elementary school
that is – as some of the tinkers. I have sat in class at school with them,
played football with them, sat in their tents and talked with them; and even
during the war found myself once, as a seaman, standing in the same pay-queue
as a tinker whose surname started with the same letters as mine, and who,
incidentally, wore on his naval uniform the campaign ribbons of the 1914-18 war
in which he had served as a soldier. For these reasons I may perhaps be excused
for embarking upon the controversial subject of the fate of these people.
Time
was when the tinkers as we knew them were nomads – camped outside one village
tonight and tomorrow night on the outskirts of another twenty miles away – pursuing
their occupations as rag-collectors, tinsmiths, and horse-dealers. But times
have changed and waste-wool collecting has become the lucrative occupation of
more “respectable” citizens, tinsmithing has been made uneconomic by the
marketing of machine-made, mass-produced articles of better quality and longer
life, and horses have been ousted by motor vehicles and tractors. There are no
longer any reasons extant for the tinker being a nomad and so we find
settlements springing up in the place of temporary encampments. And, further,
it is becoming increasingly obvious that some of these settlements are not
altogether desirable and do not provide a way of life suited to recognised
present-day requirements.
To
my way of thinking this problem, and that it is a problem is clear, cannot just
be ignored. The rest of us cannot go on with our own affairs, living our own
lives, and conforming to accepted social precepts and, at the same time,
treating these people as a separate society or as if they weren’t there.
In
this part of the world there is no colour bar – at least, not noticeably so. Coloured
people are permitted to use our eating and drinking places, shops and all
normal facilities without question; they are allowed to live among us without
any attempt at segregation. The same treatment and courtesies are meted out to
tinkers – until it comes to the point of letting them live among us. Then
segregation creeps in – and there’s the rub. A very serious rub it is too, for
any right-thinking or free-thinking person, because the answer to the problem
is not to put these people in a reservation, for obviously what were originally
voluntary settlements are developing into reservations once those who are in
them are prevented from leaving them. And on every occasion when some
enterprising member of the tinker community attempts to buy his way out of his
present environment and into ordinary society he is vetoed by authority.
Now
history shows that the policy of keeping people on reservations leads to
extinction. And there is no question but that an analysis of the present
situation leads one to the conclusion that the fate of these people must be
absorption or extinction. The only question that remains is whether we, as a
society, are going to let them waste away or whether we are going to stretch
out a helping hand in their struggle for adjustment to changed conditions. The
number of them who are engaged on public works (some of their women even work
in hospitals) shows that they themselves have seen the writing on the wall as
far as their former occupations are concerned. The fact that some of them are
trying to buy houses and crofts shows a new awareness. They have done with the
old ways of living. Are we going to hinder or help?
The
time would seem to be ripe for a thorough and exhaustive examination of the
position by the responsible authorities, a re-orientation of ideas about
tinkers as a class, and the formulation of a progressive and benevolent policy
to help them “rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to better things”.
26 & 29/06/1956
"As I See It" by M.S., published in the Stornoway Gazette.
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| (Foreground) Wartime Nissen huts on the Castle Green, Stornoway; some tinkers were living in huts like these in the 1950s, others in tents. |
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| Book cover showing Tinkers' encampment, Barra, 1952 |
