Tired of life on the road
IN TIMES gone by people would warn their children against straying near the gypsy camps. The gypsies, it was said, would kidnap the children and pass them off as their own. There was one obvious flaw here – the gypsies had plenty of mouths to feed already.
As GYPSY KIDS: OUR SECRET WORLD (Channel 5) proved last night though the story’s real meaning lay elsewhere. A couple of the youngsters featured were lucky not to be living by the roadside.
Indianna, a ball of energy who hurtled around her permanent site on a quad bike, was looking forward to moving into a prefab chalet with her own bed. She had no interest in a house made of bricks in a street though.
Jimmy and Mina always lived in houses and despite doing brilliantly in school and making friends, they moved every few years. Moving was an important part of the way of life, so much so that when they walked to school, they said their prayers, an important duty that could only be done “on the road”.
They were didn’t want to let go of a distinct tradition but nor did they want to spend every night in a different hedgerow. The kids who were living like that hated it and wanted something better. Margaret had moved 30 times in the last six months and she spoke with the weary bitterness of someone far older. Every few days, the same soap opera would unfold around her and her friends.
The bailiffs would arrive and then the police. The men would clash with the hi-vis vests and slowly, painfully, everyone would move on. In one episode, Margaret and her friends occupied a pick-up truck so that the bailiffs couldn’t seize it, delightedly squealing the rudest things they knew out of the window. It looked like the only chance they got to have some fun.
When you considered that local councils spent £18million a year shifting travelling people off land, it didn’t make sense. It made even less sense when you met teenager Jamesy, another old man with a boy’s face, whose family spent years clearing a dumpsite the council didn’t want but still faced eviction.
All that money chasing people away, or a tenth of it, providing permanent sites? It depends, of course, on whose “sense” you mean. The kidnapping story, after all, was never about the danger to kids. It was just about fear.
Following up the success of Educating Yorkshire, and echoing strands in the fictional Ackley Bridge, EDUCATING GREATER MANCHESTER (C4) arrived last night with a clamour of bells, scraping chairs and bellowing teachers. With a continually changing ethnic make-up and quadrupling numbers of pupils needing help with English, Salford secondary Harrop Fold isn’t a place where everyone blends in.
Tensions billowed last night over thoughtless “Osama bin Laden” insults and misunderstood comments over terrorism. The staff neither escalated issues nor ignored them, they wanted the kids to talk then move on. At the same time perhaps they trusted that the experience of going to school highlights everyone’s similarities.
Watching small boys drawing rude pictures on the back of a van has never been my idea of a charming scene but last night, it was that shared mischief that confirmed Syrian Rani’s membership of the gang.
Before long he was going over to Jack’s house for oven chips and that, ultimately, is how the world becomes a better place.