 Rebels
with a cause?
Travellers, Protestors and the DiY Culture
This appeared in issue no 28, Summer
1997, Criminal Justice Matters
Alan Dearling is a Research Fellow at the University
of Luton, Vauxhall Centre for Crime, Neighbourhood and Social
Change, and author of a number of books.
With Swampy and Animal becoming almost the counter-cultural answer
to Noel Edmunds, you could be forgiven for thinking that there
have been more than enough words written recently about the world
of the eco-rads. But is tunnelling, building tree houses and playing
aerial hide-and-seek with Costain security guards the whole story?
Perhaps not.
At the end of the 1980s I found myself selling off a flat with
negative equity. In other words I was broke, and still owed about
£10k. I was looking for a bit of a change to cheer myself
up, and a friend came up with a creative rescue package, offering
me a narrow boat to live and work from. For nearly three years
in the early nineties I slowly cruised around the ‘cut’
as the canal and river system is known to its inhabitants. I was
earning a reasonable amount of money writing books and articles
and commissioning new books for Longman and quite mainstream publishing
houses. Trouble is, pubs, the National Rivers Authority, police
and the like, take you on face value. And trying to be a water
gypsy for real isn’t one of the lifestyles many of them
find acceptable.
"So, you’re one of them New Age Travellers, are you?"
was a familiar greeting, often followed by a none too polite invitation
to leave the premises/area, and to spread the word to ‘my
friends’ that they were not welcome. Trouble was, who were
my friends meant to be? I was on hello terms with a couple who
lived in a bender; I knew a few people who worked with festival
welfare services and I’d recently begun to get involved
with Fiona Earle and others who ran the Skool Bus and were involved
with site education for travellers. The unfriendly responses fuelled
my interest and in the period through to 1994 and the passing
into law of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, Fiona and
myself worked with literally hundreds of other so-called New Age
Travellers to tell our tales. These were published in a substantial
book, A Time to Travel? An introduction
to Britain’s newer Travellers (Enabler Publications).
It was full of accounts, pictures and tales of travelling life
which gave a set of positive reasons for the lifestyles of travellers
and the underlying belief that a right to travel and a right
to stop should be a cornerstone of British Society.
The impact of CJA
By the time that book was published in 1994, in time for the
Glastonbury Festival at Pilton, the countercultural scene had
already undergone a number of metamorphoses from the days of the
Peace Convoy in 1984 and 1985. Ravers and party people had increasingly
joined in the summer festival scene, with Castlemorton Common,
1992, being a symbol of this union in the media and politicians
mind. Free Festivals were increasingly being replaced on the scene
with Rave Parties, which at first were equally exciting, before
they became commercialised and run from within the corporate club
culture. Police surveillance operations were mounted in 1992:
Operation Nomad, and 1993: Operation Snapshot. The aim was to
collect information about Travellers and their vehicles and use
it to make their movements more difficult. There was also increasingly
close police liaison with the DHSS/ Benefits Agency. An appropriate
slogan of the time was:
Necessity breeds ingenuity.
This apt phrase certainly described the regrouping of Travellers
in the face of a political and media campaign almost unparalleled
in its vehemence. For instance, the Daily Telegraph referred to
new Travellers as "hordes of marauding locusts". But,
as many writers have argued, for many new Travellers, the truck,
bender, tipi or van can represent a very settled way of life.
A Traveller named Claudia summed it up rather well on the BBC
programme, Roaming Free (1993):
"It’s not an unnatural instinct to be
nomadic. A lot of people have got a nomadic spirit in them –
they don’t want to see the same thing outside their window
every day – and I’m one of those people.....If we
were in cities, in houses, we’d probably still be on the
dole , you know. It doesn’t mean to say that our job prospects
would go up if we were living in houses."
In 1994, the published police estimate for new Travellers was
that there were 2,000 live-in vehicles and 8,000 people involved
all year round in England and Wales. However, organisations like
Save the Children (SCF) and Friends and Families of Travellers
(FFT) believe that the figure is closer to 50,000. FFT announced
in 1996,
"...there may be as many as 100-150,000 nomadic
people in the UK. The majority whether housed, on official sites
or camping illegally suffer prejudice and difficulties which show
few signs of abating."
In reality, the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (CJA)
had forced some Travellers to find smaller, more protected places
to park up and get on with their lives. Others found some protection
from harassment, staying in larger groups, which the local authorities
and police found harder to evict. And others left the UK and sampled
what was on offer in Europe, North Africa and India. Em, one of
a breed of new world Travellers wrote to me very recently from
Goa, saying:
"Goa attracts the biggest ever collection
of the world’s individuals. It is a shock to the system
of those accustomed to being the bizarre one; to suddenly become
just one of a few thousand larger-than-life characters. Egos are
bolstered, riding bigger bikes faster after having done more drugs,
while wearing the most outrageous clothes and having every conceivable
bodily part pierced...Heaven and Hell meet here. I love it and
hate it."(1996)
The CJA was an attempt to further criminalise a way of life with
its outlawing of groups of more than six vehicles travelling together,
increased sanctions against outdoor music and unauthorised camping,
and the introduction of ‘aggravated trespass’. But
it was still up to the police and local authorities to implement
this and other legislation regarding health and planning. Organisations
like FFT, the Children’s Society and the Telephone Legal
Advice Service for Travellers (TLAST) have been in increasing
contact with new Travellers in the last three years and have built
up a picture of very different responses to Travellers across
the UK. In some areas multi evictions, especially by the police
have forced Travellers to leave their nomadic way of life. But
in other areas, these tactics have resulted in Travellers becoming
effectively trapped in a single county as they run out of money
for fuel or essential repairs. Everywhere, sites are hard to find
even in local authorities where efforts have been made towards
making site provision. It’s a confusing situation with lots
of different local patterns.
Paul, a Traveller from Waterhall, near Brighton, said in 1996,
"The CJA actually did some good, it made local
authorities question what they actually thought about Travellers,
whereas before they just moved us on. Now they are having to think
about human rights and what they actually believe." (quoted
in Squall, 14, 1996)
Full on and Wicked
The period from the CJA’s implementation to the present
day has seen a vast explosion on the counter cultural scene. It
is a growing phenomenon of counter cultural activity which is
drawing together issues and people from animal rights groups,
road protests and environmental campaigns. It has, almost unbeknown
to the rest of society spawned its own radical set of DiY media.
These are not the photocopied fanzines of the Punk era, but instead
are the counter cultural alternatives of the Independent and the
Guardian. Amongst the main media channels of resistance are: SQUALL,
Frontline, SchNEWS, Earth First Action Update, the Stonehenge
Campaign Newsletter, Festival Eye, Undercurrents, Conscious Cinema,
FFT Newsletter, TSC Newsletter, the Right Track and Travellers’
Times. SchNEWS has made typical rallying calls to
its largely disenfranchised readership to make holistic connections
between a whole gamut of subjects ranging from road building,
the Job Seekers Allowance, Liverpool dockers, the International
arms trade, body piercing, the McDonalds’ Trial through
to international issues in Brazil and Bourgainville.
"Making these links, destroying the myth of
‘single issue’ politics is probably the most important
step we’ve taken over the past year. And it’s about
time – because if things are gonna change then such movements
have to grow." (1996)
The eco protestors, the ravers and the Travellers have indeed
started to get their shit together. In the words of their own
socially excluded culture, they want to experience the whole ‘full
on and well wicked’ experience offered by street parties
fuelled by Reclaim the Streets, Earth First! and the Land is Ours.
More and more angry and disenfranchised young and not so young
people have got involved in direct action protest and the making
of a new DiY culture. Two quotes from Colin Clark (1997) express
the attraction of the world of living at the margins and challenging
the status quo.
"New Traveller lifestyle in a world of crisis
has shown a way out of the darkness for those who are part of
it........The DiY culture threatens the very socio-economic and
political fabric that makes up sedentarist Britain."
At a personal level I’m finding the whole change an exciting
and mostly positive one. The current level of activity amongst
young people is almost entirely outside of the official political
arena, yet already has had an impact. The road protestors of Twyford
Down, Newbury and Fairmile have gained some favourable media coverage
and made a number of allies with locals along the way. Because
they have been living in benders, tipis, and vehicles and their
dress makes them indistinguishable from the Traveller communities,
a certain level of cohesiveness has resulted. Older Travellers
have started to get involved in direct action such as the Critical
Mass cycle blockades of city centres and have helped to organise
Reclaim the Streets and Reclaim the Valley type of actions. In
most instances these show that direct action can be serious and
fun all at the same time.
Born from this evolving set of cultures are groups such as the
Dongas Tribe, who formed at Twyford Down, but now move around
the UK using horse and human drawn transport and are a living
celebration of a back-to-the earth consciousness. The seasoned
veterans of Travellers sites, road, airport, quarry, nuclear and
animal rights actions seem to be more aligned together in one
cultural group. Certainly this was evidenced at the 1996 Big Green
Gathering where protestors from Fairmile, Trollheim, Newbury and
Selar were well represented, along with planning protestors like
Simon Fairlie from the low impact bender village at Tinkers’
Bubble, Travellers from TSC, workers from the Childrens’
Society and FFT and many, many more. It’s a culture which
is making its mark and its own history, even if not everyone has
noticed!
Welfare Agencies
As a final postscript, it is interesting to note that the development
of the wider based DiY culture has also been an increasing area
of interest to academics and commentators. I996 saw the publication
of Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since
the Sixties (Verso) by George Mc Kay and Fierce Dancing:
Adventures in the Underground (faber and faber) from the
Big Issue/Guardian’s C.J. Stone, and A Traveller’s
Guide (FFT). This year has seen the publication of my own
book Youth Action and the Environment (Council for Environmental
Education/RHP) and Thomas Acton’s Gypsy Politics and
Traveller identity (University of Hertfordshire Press) with
the chapter on new Travellers from Colin Clark. Other books are
in the pipeline including my own comiplation of new Traveller
writings from Europe and beyond, entitled, No Bouundaries
(contributions still welcomed!)
It has also been mirrored by a growing, if unequally distributed,
range of self-help services such as the support offered by FFT,
TLAST, the Travellers’ School Charity (TSC) and the support
of concerned voluntary and statutory services including Save the
Children, the Children’s Society, the National Council for
Voluntary Organisations, the Travellers’ Education Service,
the Big Issue and local initiatives such as the Taunton Detached
Youth Work Project, which has offered a whole range of support
for local Travellers including free showers and distribution of
food donated by Marks and Spencers. In addition to offering support
and advice to Travellers, there are also an increasing number
of conferences being held on Traveller issues, for example, NCVO’s
Land, People and Freedom in June 1997, TSC’s Insights
into new Traveller culture in July 1997, and TLAST’s
Traveller Law Reform conference back in March. Research
and subsequent reports and findings are also being generated,
for instance, the Children’s Society, Impact of the
CJA on the lives of Travellers and their children (Lyn Webster,
Children’s Society, 1995).
The counter culture of Travellers, raves and free festivals,
road protest and the direct action scene seems much like a chrysalis
evolving into a butterfly. As it learns to fly it will undoubtedly
display new forms. The challenge for the welfare, education and
justice services in the UK and beyond is whether they react positively
or negatively to this precious (but unprotected) species.
Alternative lifestyles/travellers/road protest/parties
contacts:
Big Green Gathering 1997, PO Box 123, Salisbury, Wilts SP2 OYA
Charter 88, Exmouth House, 3-11 Pine Street, London EC1R 0JH
Children’s Society, 92B High Street, Midsomer Norton, Bath
BA3 2DE
Conscious Cinema, PO Box 2679, Brighton BN2 1UJ
Diggers and Dreamers (communes UK and elsewhere) annual directory,
PO Box 1808, Winslow, Buckinghamshire MK18 3BR
Dongas Tribe, 6 East St, West Coker, Somerset BA22 9BE
Earth First! and Reclaim the Streets, PO Box 9656, London N4
4JY
Exodus Collective, Long Meadow Community Farm, Chalton Cross,
Sundown Rd, Luton, Bedfordshire
Festival Eye, BCM 2002, London WC1N 3XX
Freedom Network, PO Box 9384, London SW9 7ZB
Friends and Families of Travellers, Top Floor, 33 High St, Glastonbury
BA6 9HT
Frontline magazine, Victoria Rd, Yarmouth, Isle of Wight PO41
0QW
National Council for Voluntary Organisations Rural Team, Regents
Wharf, 8 All Saints Rd, London N1 9RL
Rainbow Circle Camps, Sampson’s Cottage, Seven Leaze Lane,
Edge, Stroud, Gloucester GL6 6NL
Rainbow International events, Eur-Asia-Bus, Postfach 4016, CH-8022,
Zurich, Switzerland
Right Track, 84 Bankside Street, Leeds LS8 5AD
Road Alert!, PO Box 5544, Newbury, RG14 5FB
SchNEWS, Justice?, PO Box 2600, Brighton, East Sussex BN2 2DX
SQUALL magazine (for sorted itinerants), PO Box 8959, London
N19 5HW
Squatters Handbook, Advisory Service for Squatters, 2 St Paul’s
Rd, London N1 2QN
Stonehenge Campaign, c/o 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX
Taunton Detached Youth Project, TYCC, Tangier, Taunton, Somerset
TA1 4AY
The Land is Ours, Box E , 111 Magdalen Rd, Oxford OX4 1RQ
Travellers School Charity, PO Box 36, Grantham, Lincs NG31 6EW
Travellers’ Times and the Telephone Legal Advice Service
for Travellers, Cardiff law School, University of Wales, College
of Cardiff, Cardiff CF1 1XD
Undercurrents Videos, 16b Cherwell St, Oxford OX4 1BG |