You
People come here
the pilgrimage it's a pilgrimage even if the fair wasn't on they'd still come
because this is the day that the charter says the fair is on the sources
today have traveled from Cornwall to be here they start off in April come for
weeks and weeks you know the byways and the highways to get here
ridiculous it's in the middle of nowhere a field it's just applebee horse fair
Romany people are traveling people we like horses we like to be outside we
like the outdoors I've always ridden the horses I've been very lucky my dad
loves horses my grandparents my granddad my both sides my mom my dad side all
horse people it was always a horse fair in the cattle market at least for a
thousand years and when we came into this country 500 years ago we've started
coming to it and more and more gypsies came to it and it became a gypsy fair
and in 1685 King James the second charted it to the gypsy people because
there's so many gypsies in and it's been our fair ever since
I always wanted to run my own business and I bought a pub on applebee high
street simply because it was much cheaper to move north and it was to buy a
pub in the south and I bought the white heart on the high street in applebee and
we moved into it early June a week before applebee horse fair so it was like
a baptism of fire we didn't know what to expect and within a few days of being
there I thought I'd be cooking meals for eight to ten people and hundreds of
people suddenly descended on the pub so that was sort of the start of my
relationship with this area I ran the pub for five years and I did five
applebee horse fairs this is the most important
date in the gypsy and travel calendar the applebee fair is the most important
thing to the Roma gypsy community in Britain and in Europe we've got gypsies
here from all of you we've got French gypsies here and Dutch gypsies and we
got gypsies here from America and Canada and Australia this place where we are
sitting now this land and this hill is sacred to our people when we're here we
get a sense of ancestry this is when our ancestors came that fire outside my
ancestors sat around the same fire and it so it gives us a sense of place a
sense of belonging which we haven't got anywhere else in the world being gypsies
this is our mecca if this is where the young men and the young women meet the
future husbands in the future minors this is where we see families and friends
but we haven't seen since the applebee before and wherever we are in Europe or
the world we're trying to come back for it if we can
our push to your car you're rocking the rock
let me I said it's good to be speaking to you you're born into it your parents
grandparents you have to have the blood connection to be a Roman to be a gypsy
can't just jump up one day and say I want to be a gypsy it to be a
Roman it to be like me it has to be in the blood we share the sense of community
a language culture I've been abroad I've come in contact with other gypsies and I
always notice a gypsy there is always something familiar even the foreign
gypsies there always something connection as a something familiar to
yourself you can recognize in them I think it is a fascinating culture I mean
it's had a lot of publicity in the UK because of the television series my big
fat gypsy wedding on channel 4 you know all about that and that got the
enormous ratings and it sort of highlighted the gypsy culture to a much
wider audience and people found it quite fascinating and I think that was a good
thing really but then maybe it wasn't edited very kindly I don't know it's
maybe things have changed now I would I remember of it the locals never liked it
people hated the fair they didn't want the gypsies here but it's a charter set
in stone what's 360 years ago by James the second it's never gonna change you
have to accept it and yeah I just think it's something quite special and unique
for the town
gypsies in all walks of life you know there's very educated gypsies very
wealthy gypsies the gypsies you out there you would never guess that they were
gypsies we've been to Doncaster races years ago but traveling men will pull up
Rolls Royce got out business man briefcase nothing I think and he was a
traveling man you wouldn't when I was a little boy who was traveling all the
time my day was after the wagons there's no horse drawn wagons we've got motors
and trailers there we're coming into the 70s 80s when I grew up
but my mom that was always working always doing business my dad for years was
agricultural salesman he sold gates and barbed wire galvanized sheets scrap
carpets dad used to have a business we had with big van the photos I'm going to
show you of the off-straw wagons your caravans they were taken by
Gorgia people they've stopped them along the road as they were traveling along
the road and that's for a photograph and they'd always say yes you can have a
photograph as long as you let me have one they'd give him address where they
could be contacted some farm or somewhere where they used to stay and then
later on it come to that place and the people they would keep informed and the
others come around and they collected it yeah that's my that's my granddad my dad's
I think he's about 12 and that was done traveling you know like I told you
stop can we have a photograph yes we can have one me and my mom
you obviously you know that is 20 I was a bit slimmer than I you see that did
you see that I got you and dad oh well all cowboys
why when I was in America I put it in so well
it's our way so you travel is like a deal like to have a bit of trade it's
what we brought up to do do a bit of business and a bit of trade and a bit of
dealing without our 50 quid I can't do any better I can say 55 quid is the best
all right don't argue right thank you yeah I've been told to argue it makes us
happy cheers it's good fun and the barter is well you know I mean it's it's
really good
we like all the cute horses we're just like walking around
we usually just play with the travel we don't usually used to like going with
travelers and going like to the pictures and stuff on Sunday and we are the
most hated people in the land and the reason for that is that the newspapers
and some of the reports what comes on TV 95% of people don't know gypsies don't
knowingly know gypsies they know them but they don't know the gypsies we keep
our identity secret a lot and the only information they have on us is what some
of the newspapers right which is lies and 99% propaganda against us same as
what happened to Nazi Germany we have the same problem here in this country so
when 95% of the people don't know us or know anything about us the only
information they have on us is what they're reading this newspaper it
frightens them and they just presume that we're all criminals we're not all
business people like I say with payable taxes today is a wet day and it's not
very pleasant but Saturday and Sunday is our best day and if the weather is good
we'll get a lot of tourists coming and we encourage the gorgeous to come we want
them to come sit around our fires with us and talk to us and have their own
opinion about us not what the newspapers tell them some racist newspaper or some
racist TV program tells them to form their own opinion about us at the end of the
day we're entitled to our existence we're entitled to our identity we're
entitled to live our lives in the way we want to live with our culture and our
traditions and we aren't bothering anybody by doing that so why people hate us
I don't know we've lived in Darlington for 170 years and even today people say
to us why don't you go back to where you came from and I'll say how long have you
lived in Darlington they say we've lived here for 30 years so we've lived here
for 170 years why don't you go back to where you came from people just think
you don't deserve to be anywhere you don't deserve to be in a country you
don't deserve to be in a town you don't deserve to exist some governments are
worse than others I mean in this country we've been relatively lucky we haven't
suffered the same prejudice as the gypsies have suffered on the continent
we haven't suffered under dictators or Nazis or communists they never got to us
we've been fortunate to live on this little island our culture and our
language has evolved a little bit differently over 500 years from the
rest of the European gypsies we're a little bit different from them but we
descended from them and being on this island has protected us and Appleby
Appleby Horse Fair is a perfect illustration of that because there's
nothing else like it anywhere left in the world this is one of the reasons I'm
talking to you today really I'm just trying to open people's eyes and
understanding to be a gypsy it's to be criminalized you're a criminal you've
got to be a criminal to be a gypsy and that's just the way it is if you ask my
neighbors and most of the people around and my faith if anybody pulls up to ask
directions and says where our home is that's it the gypsy you don't want to go
there you know honestly this is it's wrong if it was any other ethnicity you
know and they were being treated like that they will it wouldn't be allowed but
it's alright they see it as alright with gypsies so it's okay with us but we
don't do anything I don't I don't do anything to our neighbors we respect them
I have a lot of respect for our neighbors the police and everybody and we don't do
anything wrong I think they're very private people they keep very much
within themselves where I live now in Cheshire there's about four miles away
from me there's an area where there's hundreds of families living on one
particular site and you don't even know it's there you just don't even know it's
there now I know that's not true of every way you know but there's a very
discreet you know they behave themselves and just don't have a problem with it
there is gypsies out there who are not nice people in every culture and
community you're gonna get that you know you can't blame me for the bad ones
that's not me that's nothing to do with me it's unfair on just to put us all in
the same boat that's all the same because we're not I don't do it to the
gorgeous people I know there's good out there as nice gorgeous people and I'll
say there is you know but we suffer great prejudice and racism all the time
unfortunately the area I live everybody knows me but you think they'd know better
but it's just one of those things they just you just and you'll see them point
you out and they think I don't notice and I'm not you know I mean and one of
my main duties one of my important jobs is to keep the gypsy people and the
traveling people happy but also to keep the gorgeous happy the people from the
settlement to the people who live in that make us welcome and the people of
Cumbria to make them happy also so it's a balancing act if you look at the flag
up here we have the uni in Jack because we're British gypsies we have the
Roma flag because we're Roma gypsies but we also have the Cumbrian flag to
recognize our appreciation for Cumbria and the Cumbrian people for welcoming
us here for 500 years every year and the people of Cumbria are as important as my
own people I must make them all happy my people even in this country we have a
very colored view of authority we don't trust them because over the centuries
they've done that many bad things to us and lied to us and deceived us and with
a lot of my people now they have a lot of mistrust with the gorgeous and I'm
trying to break them barriers down I'm trying to get people to talk to each of
them one of our biggest problems now is we're so secretive and so private it
doesn't do our cause much good because we won't open up enough to people people
distrust us and people are frightened of what they don't understand and I'm
trying to break down them barriers and a perfect illustration that is this fair
when the tourists come tomorrow or Sunday to invite them in and come and
speak to us invite them in like I've invited you into my home and bring them
around the fire and speak to them and let them see that we are normal people
just normal people the same as everyone else we might have a little bit of a
different culture a different language but we are at the deep dam basically the
same people and you want to raise our children look after our families in the
best way we can so we want the same things even the
other ones we are this two-headed monster what some people think a good thing
what happened to us recently a few months ago my nephew married young girl
from the gorgia community and she came to live amongst with us and she lives
next door back in Darlington where we have the caravan side he lives next
door to me and she's the loveliest young woman you've ever met in your life
she's absolutely wonderful and we love her you'd think she'd be with us all
her life because she's just blended she's fitted in so well domain but he also
does things what gorgeous do we also takes things from air culture as well
he's Roma Gypsy and she's gorgeous but they've got the opportunity to take the
best of both cultures to use the best of both cultures and this is what we're
trying to promote and encourage one of the biggest problems but my people this
is and I'm trying to correct this we don't vote we pay our taxes we pay our
rates but we don't vote because we don't think it's important to vote we think
this is how my people think we think that is their world that is the world of
the gorgia we live in our world but now I am trying to encourage my people to vote
I'm gonna say to my people register yourselves and vote we can make a
difference the government thinks there's 300,000 of us in this country there
isn't there's closer to a million and in a close-run election if an election is
very very close we could be the difference in a political party getting
power or not getting power so if we do that and we use our world maybe the
government will start listening to us and treating us as equals we don't have
no one in Parliament we don't have an MP maybe in the future one of our young
people could come through and couldn't be in Parliament and be an MP we don't want
more than anyone else we just want the same as anyone else we just want to be
equal with everybody all men are equal and God's eyes
I enjoyed it I thought the fair was fantastic at the end of it you breathe
the sigh of relief put the carpets back down put the pitchers back upon the
walls but I always liked the gypsies we did have trouble we had a room trashed
we had things happen but they always came back and they always apologized they
would pay for any damage they've done and then that seemed to settle down and
they got to know us and because we serve them and we were good with them and
enjoyed having the company they were good to us so if there was any sign of
trouble they would sort it out it wasn't down to my husband to sort it out
any longer they sort of looked after us so I've always thought you know they
would very do some people really I actually you know really admire them I
like the look I like the ethos I like the way the relationships are very true
to each other they're very loyal they're very family-orientated they're quite
religious I think that's quite a good thing
All the things this world can give
There's nothing to compare with you I've searched my heart and found my feet
on solid ground your spirit lives in me my Jesus Christ you set me free you
died and give me liberty when I was dead in sin your grace answered in you set
this captive free this new life I have in you but I want you to know this new
life I have in you there's no other way to go
I'm proud to be a gypsy and I'm proud of who I am and I'm proud of my people in the
court you and there is good people out there good gypsies and that's got to be
recognized accepted
when I think about being born a gypsy I think I'm a very fortunate man I think
I'm extremely fortunate and I've thought that from being a baby and I've always
think to myself even when I was a child I'm glad I'm a gypsy because we live the
best life in the world we're a very free people and we do our own thing mind our
business but the wife we live is a wonderful wife
you
