Islington’s Travellers add their voices to complaints over Big Fat Gypsy adverts

IRISH Travellers in Islington have joined the chorus of complaints about the Channel 4 programme My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, saying that it is symptomatic of the bullying and casual racism they are exposed to on a daily basis.

The series, currently being broadcast on Tuesdays, came under fire for its advertising campaign which saw hoardings emblazoned with the words “Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier”.

They provoked 100 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority and were condemned as racist and offensive.

Jenny Daly, a spokeswoman at Holloway Road’s Irish Traveller Movement and a former Islington Council worker, said the organisation regularly receives calls from Travellers about racism affecting their lives.

At a meeting of the Travellers with the Tribune one 49-year-old woman who didn’t want to be named, said: “That is like watching a show about English footballers and assuming that all English people live like that.

“Our lives are nothing like that. There are no flash cars or huge houses, we just try and get on like everybody else, but every day we face discrimination.

“The main reason we would take our daughters out of school is not to get them married, it’s actually because they’re getting bullied. Name calling, physical bullying, you name it, and it all hurts. It makes our community want to distance even more.”

A 24-year-old intern at the centre said: “Would anybody ever dare make a show called ‘Bigger, Fatter, Blacker’? No of course not. But racism against Travellers is still acceptable.

“That’s only going to change once there’s a real drive to stamp it out through education, through local politicians meeting us, talking about this discrimination when they’re giving speeches to large audiences, and making it clear that it’s unacceptable publicly. I’m not saying they can do all the work, but they can help.”

Ms Daly said part of the solution was for the Town Hall to become more involved with the community.

“A few months back we met a few senior managers from the council,” she said. “What came across was not that they didn’t want to engage with the communities, but they didn’t know where to start.

“There is no one site for Travellers in Islington, so the communities remain unseen and people presume they don’t exist. That means they’re not actively included in the equalities, inclusion and community strategies. So a cycle of distrust, disengagement and poor social outcomes continues.”

She added: “A lot of Travellers experience isolation, health problems, hardship, racism, so councillors and services need to know more about the community.”

The organisation said that two-thirds of the Traveller community live in housing, contrary to public perception.

The Irish Traveller Movement is also continuing with legal action against the JD Wetherspoon-owned Coronet pub in Holloway Road, alleging that 10 people who had attended a conference at the centre in November were denied access to the pub.

JD Wetherspoon vehemently denies racial discrimination. It says the group were stopped from entering the pub because there were too many of them and that allegations of discrimination are “unfair” and “wrong”.