My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

Oh. My. God. The last three pictures... :eek: funny how one pictures seems to be slightly distorted making the women in the picture fatter or thinner than they are. Still though - the colours... they look like a human chav version of a soiled box of Allsorts.


And these girls have morals?!! :D That is beyond awful, it's a shame as well because most of the wedding dresses I've seen on these traveller girl don't seem too bad, it's just the below bodice part and train that is too big or long. IMO if there was no train and less 'puffyness', it wouldn't look tha bad.
As for the description of their dress sense as looking like 'hookers', I suggest they are following what some 'non-traveller' girl wear on a night out or what you see some celebs wear too - not to a wedding and probably not the same colours but it seemingly have the same style and amount of skin on show! :D



I think the majority of parents/husbanRAB would say 'tough'! I'm no expert so I could be wrong but going by this programme, the only girl shown working was doing so to pay towarRAB her wedding and it was a temporary job, not exactly a career-beginning move.
 
I think they are talking about a horse which drowned at Appleby Horse Fair a couple of years ago. The person involved was sent to prison and banned from keeping animals for 5 years I believe. AT any event there is usually one bad apple unfortunately.:(

Since horses are their livelihood it makes no sense for them to illtreat their horses and I have personally not seen any evidence of that around here. I very often ask advice of them if our horses have problems.
 
I have actually witnessed this on a main road in C London where the police cordoned it off whilst the warring families (and everyone they'd ever met) ripped their shirts off and beat each other practically to death. That night there were four stabbings and a passing girl got stalked and harassed. The police blamed it ALL on a local illegal immigrant and had him deported without a trial.

The way to know is that travellers always throw their shirts off for fighting and the police never intervene.

I feel desperately sorry for dispossesed people and the documentaries about Appelby and esp the one called Gypsy Wars had me in tears with the unfairness of how travellers are treated (especially compared to say, refugees, and other immigrants). When Corin Redgrave actually died of a heart attack in court trying to defend the land rights I was sobbing my heart out :cry: BUT I also lived in the heart of a poor working class Irish area for 20 years and although I was personally always 'looked after', I could write a book about the madness and insanity and hypocrysy of the so called 'lifestyle' being passed down - it's basically nothing but booze, drugs, beatings, wife battering, crime, and antisocial behaviour kept secret amongst big families. And it would have been nice if instead of aspiring to Disney, the girls could aspire to their own culture for dresses and styles. Eire is a wonderful rich country to be proud of.
 
i thought it was a interesting programme, makes you wonder how they can afford it though! ive only had pleasant experiences of travellers and the people on the programme seemed nice
 
In my work, I've had to deal with Irish travellers regularly over the last 5 years, and i can say that what they portrayed on that programme was EXTREMELY tame, either they never filmed stuff purposely or everyone attending has been told, the cameras are on and to behave nicely to give the right impression.

My experience is as such....

The Women... They dress like prostitutes, are orange in colour and wear the largest earrings, rings and bangles they can find, and most women i have met cant read, it seems they don't need to read to have kiRAB and keep her man happy.
they are prone to stealing whatever they can, I've seen them robbing babies dummies, individual eggs, onions, even steeling the hair products and clippers from a hair dresser.

The Men... They normally wear smart trousers, smart shirt, covered by a Grey or Green V neck pullover, they actually look quite smart, side parting hair, polished shoes, most have pot marked faces for some reason, most have mis-shaped noses from fighting, and are prone to random acts of violence.
Quite often a mass brawl will break out between a group, normally it will turn out they were all the one family fighting amongst themselves.

The girls...Normally carbon copies of the Women, dressed like lap-dancers, they walk around in groups, normally an older one will have 3 or 4 younger (i presume siblings) in tow, they will steal and rob anything that they can get their hanRAB on, they are well trained at this, and will have no problems shouting "PEDO" if they think you are in risk of stopping them steal.

The boys...The boys are carbon copies of the men, well dressed young boys, prone to random violence against their frienRAB, family and anyone else in the vicinity, they also steal anything at hand, swear shout, and do pretty much anything they want without reprisals from their fathers as they are probably fighting with each next door.


Overall they are a nightmare, when they book something, they book under false names, not only to let anyone twig they are travellers, but also when they have stolen half the hotel, knocked walls through and assaulted staff, they can all make a getaway leaving the police looking for 120 people called O'connor.

also have my suspicions about their real identities and ages, a lot of them will be home births, so how do we know who really is who's mother, when they were born ect, What's to stop someone going into a 2 or 3 different hospitals with the same new born baby and getting a birth certificate, therefore passport, drivers licence, social security benefits, and when being caught for a crime, giving their other identity.

I honestly had never met a Gypsy before i started dealing with them in work, but every single one have ever met has followed the above rules.

The programme was VERY well edited is all i can say.
 
I've had limited interaction with gypsies, mainly through my work, and I can't say I've had any bad experiences. I know I've been warned not to get on the wrong side of them, and to watch what I do/say and not to approach them on my own, but I don't know how much of that advice was fair or how much was prejudice. I also used to work with a woman who was half gypsy, and she was very clear about right and wrong, and went against most of the prejudices I've read in this thread and elsewhere.

The ones I met were living in semi-permanent homes on established sites, and I have to echo that they were always very clean, albeit with dubious taste. I never saw any bother, and was treated with respect, albeit perhaps some suspicion, not that I blame them given the evident prejudice they must face on a regular basis.

The outfits were horrible, and my former colleague would have agreed. She used to take the mickey out of that aspect of her culture, but she got very angry at the presumption that they were thieves or cruel to animals. I think she acknowledged the readiness to get into fights.:p

Like all communities, there are good and bad people, and when people get a bad reputation, it's easy to play up to it.

No doubt, the nature of their lifestyle means that it is easier for those who decide to fiddle their taxes to get away with it, but it's something that happens in the rest of the population too.

My main criticism, which I accept is seeing their life through my values, is why spend so much money on what I think of as superficial stuff like a wedding dress or expensive ornaments, and tacky jewellry, but live in a caravan/mobile home. It seems like a waste that would be better invested in a nice property, but if your culture is one of moving around, then property isn't something that you have ever bothered with.

People are asking how they can afford expensive weddings, but I bet most of us could if we hadn't spent so much money on our homes in the first place.
 
Agree with all your points here. That behaviour really reflects badly on our country, considering the rest of us try to be good people. I had some Traveller girls at school and they all left at 16 to get married and the year I was doing exams one of them came back to the school to talk to them and she had her baby with her (she was about my age). I was a bit shocked. Some of them were trouble, always getting into fights and breaking rules and not listening in class or doing homework.
 
I wondered about that last time I watched it. I feel kinda sorry for some of the poor girls marrying so young and not being allowed to continue at school, go to university or have any sort of career ambition apart from staying at home and popping out some babies.
 
But that does not mean hundreRAB and thousanRAB of people are going to behave like that. That is like saying because of certain high profile internet scams all Nigerians must be untrustworthy.
 
Just read that this pulled in almost 5 million viewers last night for channel 4! Their second highest rating of the year. I honestly think they could do a 6 part series of this. Not just weddings but all aspects of gypsy life. It was brilliant viewing.
 
Many are very disrespectful for the norms of social rules in society. They cannot demand to be treated fairly and judged like everyone else when they fail to accept those norms.

Simple things like lying about in a Church with their feet up as if they are back home for instance. You wouldn't go into someone's house and do that, or do it in the pub and lie about like a scrag.
 
That post about the horse tied to a lamppost is so sad and very cruel. I hate to see horses just abandoned in fielRAB - and from watching the animal rescue shows a lot of the time the owners are tracked down to be gypsies/travellers.

I hate it. :(
 
Back
Top