ENGLAND

FROM THE ECONOMIST

http://www.economist.com/realarticleid.cfm?redirect_id=18712487

GYPSY FAIRS


All the fun of the fair

England’s gypsies try to forget their troubles

STOW-ON-THE-WOLD ENGLAND

CANDY SHERIDAN, vice-chairwoman of the Gypsy Council, a representative body, smiles as she surveys the familiar, teeming scene at the gypsy horse fair at Stow-on-the-Wold. England’s gypsies (of Romany extraction) and travellers (mainly from Irish Catholic backgrounds) come to Stow in their thousands twice a year, in May and October, as they have done for over 500 years. The fairs, Ms Sheridan says, are crucial for “putting ourselves on show, trading with each other and having a sense of pride”.

It seems a contented scene. Gypsies and travellers come to deal their trademark horses, piebald or skewbald cobs—highly prized beasts said to have calm temperaments. Ted Chaney, a horse-dealer, says buyers are looking for a glossy mane, a nice size and (the main attraction) finely feathered feet. Loretta Rawlings, another dealer, says that around ten gypsy families, including her husband’s, now sell cobs to Australia, Brazil, American and eastern Europe: “They have become luxury items.”

Gypsy women do a brisk trade in trinkets, elaborately embroidered clothing, bedding, pots and pans. Younger folk have another reason to come: much wooing takes place in and around the fair. Most gypsy visitors are decked out in their best outfits. Men wear natty suits and Panama hats. Long-haired girls clad in bright Lycra outfits eye up likely lads riding cobs bareback across the fields, or scattering the crowds as they canter their horses and carts among them.

But not everybody in Stow, a prosperous market town in the Cotswolds, welcomes the fair. Edward IV granted it a royal charter in 1476, giving the event legal protection from closure that is still in force—which, for the fair-goers, is just as well. In 1995 the district council took out an injunction that restricts the number of nights that gypsies and travellers can stay before and after the gathering. Many local shopkeepers close their doors during it. Robin Jones, Stow’s mayor, is distinctly chilly about the fair, claiming that petty crime is commonplace—though the police say the event is usually peaceful. Vera Norwood, a former mayor, is far more sympathetic, blaming wealthy newcomers to Stow for “nastiness” towards the gypsies.

In any case, many of the gypsies and travellers at the fair have bigger worries than such sniffiness. Government funding for new, permanent campsites has been cut. Some who have bought their own land, but failed to get planning permission for their dwellings, now face eviction. The biggest encampment, at Dale Farm in Essex, is expected to be ordered to leave within a month. Many complain that a recent television series, “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding”, fed anti-gypsy feeling by confirming negative stereotypes. “It’s so nice to switch off, dress up and have a chat, rather than be fighting for our rights,” Ms Sheridan says. But, she adds, “most people don’t really understand us at all.”