Celebrating Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month

This month, June 2009, is being marked in Britain as History Month for the Gypsy, Roma and Travelling communities to remind people both within and outside these communities of their real and lasting role played in history and culture.

In the wake of the gains made by the BNP in England, by the Jobbik anti-Roma party in Hungary, and by other extreme parties elsewhere in the June 2009 European Parliamentary elections let us remind ourselves how these communities have been victimised and marginalised in the past. The attempts by the Nazis to wipe out the Roma are only recent history. Even more recent was the killing of 15 year-old Traveller Johnny Delaney in Ellesmere Port in May 2003, which is not widely known about. Read the BBC report of the trial of Johnny's killers; the police investigation treated this as a racist crime but the judge in the case decided otherwise.

The big event in the Travelling community this month is of course the Appleby Fair in Cumbria, but the website of the Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month GRTHM shows other events being organised all round Britain. The GRT Achievement Service in Leeds has an online shop with a new DVD 'The First Traveller' for sale with songs, stories and music from such Travellers as Sheila Stewart MBE. The GRTHM has also produced a small collection of songs in the downloadable Romano Drom Songbook.

Here is a great cultural tradition to celebrate, and one which should be valued for its vitality and vigour.

Nicodemus
8 June 2009