Over the last month or so, whenever I was picking a pupil up from Top Valley, it had been noticeable that a bunch of travellers (aka in colloquial terms, “gypsies”) had infested a playing field up that way.
Now, I know there will be do-gooders out there who resent the use of the term “gypsy”, citing that it is the correct name for the Romani people emanating from Central and Eastern Europe. Actually, its legal meaning includes New Age Travellers, Irish Travellers, and “persons of nomadic habit of life, whatever their race or origin, but does not include members of an organised group of travelling showmen, or persons engaged in travelling circuses, travelling together as such.” So there.
The kind I’m talking about, though, are filthy vermin who require a major clean-up operation after they’ve been kicked off land they have often broken into, quite probably by cutting down hedges, or breaking fences or locks (unless the Council had been stupid enough not to erect a strong barrier to prevent their purulent ingress in the first place). I’m citing real examples from around here, by the way, in case those do-gooders I mentioned are still on the case.
The mob who have just been kicked off the playing fields in Top Valley simply moved a few hundred yards to a field off Beckhampton Road, and now the idiot Council has got to go through the whole two-plus week saga of having them evicted again. Earlier this year they fouled up a field in West Bridgford. In the past they have infested fields close to my home. Wherever they go, reports of crime increase. All they do is scuttle from place to place like the vermin they are. It is obvious that they had already cased the new joint and organised a new hole to retreat to the second they left the previous location. They all own flat bed trucks of the kind used to effect minor road repairs and driveway upgrades.
As usual. they are “demanding” a permanent site. I would suggest this location: 48.535250, -14.550861 (paste it into Google Maps). No sensible or respectable member of society is going to be happy having these living anywhere near them. And nor should any council expect them to be.
What prompted me to write this was a couple of quotes from/about these people.
One of the travellers, Patrick Ward, told BBC Radio Nottingham’s Pip Watts they were using the Southglade Leisure Centre for showers and toilets.
Yeah, and I’ll bet Southglade stays open all night and on weekends, and that these “respectable” travellers just hold it in otherwise. And their kids – they always have loads of kids – won’t soil a nappy when the place is shut. For every traveller who has a chemical toilet, and who pays to have it emptied professionally, there are hundreds who don’t. And none of them carry bin bags away with them – they just leave their mess wherever it falls.
He said he had tried to live in a house in Bulwell with his family for a year but he “felt too enclosed” and moved back outside.
Sorry, Pat, but that’s no reason for people who don’t have your obvious emotional problems to have to put up with your odious presence. Particularly when you are not the only one in your pack, and no matter how good you are (or profess to be), you’re only as good as the worst of your number.
The simple fact is that these people shit in every corner of any field they occupy. You can see them going into the bushes to do it (when we had them, all the footpaths were fouled with it). They leave bin bags full of nappies and other filth when they go not to mention old baths, bikes, car parts/tyres, and other ridiculous items of junk. And they don’t pay to have it removed – we do. So they’re hardly the hard-done-by angels our friend Pat implies.
I noticed recently that a few caravans have set up on the green near Clifton Village. So far, there’s only about three – but just watch them multiply like fungus. They did last time they camped there.