Oral History Interview - Josie Riley
Object
Audio file
Production date
04/06/2001
Object number
2018.61
Physical Description
Audio recording of an oral history interview with Josie Riley.
Josie was born in Ireland, and is a traveller who, at the time of recording, lives on one of the traveller sites provided by Hackney Council.
Josie was born in Ireland, and is a traveller who, at the time of recording, lives on one of the traveller sites provided by Hackney Council.
Description
[00:00:00] Introduction, born in Ireland, childhood travelling, traveller families, living in Ireland
[00:01:47] Traveller approach to bringing up children, schooling
[00:02:55] Average day growing up. The ‘old days’
[00:04:14] Why travellers travel, hostility from government, no desire to be in houses, the traveller community
[00:07:20] Living in Hackney in camps, arrival in England, husband’s work, Hackney is home, living in Paddington
[00:10:25] Living in Dalston, camping by Ridley Road, moving around the Hackney area, living in Grantham Avenue ‘pull-in’ place, ‘family toleration site’
[00:13:06] Move to current Waterton site, the need for traveller sites, daughter-in-law struggles
[00:15:33] Site facilities, pitch allowances
[00:17:12] Sense of home on this site, sense of community, desire for more sites, lack of places for young families
[00:20:27] Settling in Hackney, new sites in the future
[00:01:47] Traveller approach to bringing up children, schooling
[00:02:55] Average day growing up. The ‘old days’
[00:04:14] Why travellers travel, hostility from government, no desire to be in houses, the traveller community
[00:07:20] Living in Hackney in camps, arrival in England, husband’s work, Hackney is home, living in Paddington
[00:10:25] Living in Dalston, camping by Ridley Road, moving around the Hackney area, living in Grantham Avenue ‘pull-in’ place, ‘family toleration site’
[00:13:06] Move to current Waterton site, the need for traveller sites, daughter-in-law struggles
[00:15:33] Site facilities, pitch allowances
[00:17:12] Sense of home on this site, sense of community, desire for more sites, lack of places for young families
[00:20:27] Settling in Hackney, new sites in the future
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Digital file (.wav)
Digital file (.mp3)
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No
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Interview with Josie Riley. Interviewer Alex Sydney - 4th June 2001
Q. Ok this is Alex Sydney recording on the morning of the 4th of June 2001. For the benefit of the tape could you just say your name and place? [00:00:00]
Josie Riley (JR). Josie Riley
Q. Josie Riley and when and where were you born? If you don’t want to say when you were born – [00:00:12]
JR. Enniskillen. County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland
Q. If we could start off the interview just by talking a little bit about what you remember about your childhood, and about growing up and so forth. Could you tell me a little bit about your family? [00:00:24]
JR. We were travelling people and would always travel around the country, never stayed on sites. Always needed new sites because you couldn't pull in places. It has now all changed now, you have to stay on the sites now, permanently.
Q, When you were travelling around, how many people would there be, or how many vans? [00:00:46]
JR. There might be four vans or five, usually big families, a few together.
Q. How many people would live in a van? [00:00:59]
JR. Well, the father and mother and their own family, six kids or eight kids, whatever. As many as there were in the family.
Q. How often would you say you moved? Was it weekly or daily –? [00:01:12]
JR. Maybe every couple of months, every week sometimes. It depends. If you didn't like the country you move on to a different one.
Q. Whereabouts in Ireland did you travel? Was it all around the country or? [00:01:25]
JR. All Northern Ireland, Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Galway
Q. Where was your favourite? [00:01:34]
JR. My favourite was Cork
Q. Why was that? [00:01:38]
JR. I liked it and the people was very nice in Cork, they were very polite. I had two children born in Cork. That is one of the reasons.
Q. Right [laughs] As a child, obviously if you’re travelling around you wouldn’t go to a fixed school or anything like that? [00:01:47]
JR. I had no schooling.
Q. Could you tell me about what the travellers approach to bringing up children is then? How it differs from … [00:02:01]
JR. It is different these days, the children are all good scholars. My own children are all good scholars. One is married now, but I couldn't even write my name, just had to make an X.
Q. Why was that? They taught themselves? [00:02:18]
JR. We never got the education. No they got. [inaudible] [00:02:24] At that time your father and mother, the old people alive, there was no school. Nobody ever come to you about school or … so you had to put the kids through school.
Q. That has changed now because people come –? [00:02:34]
JR. That has changed now. Teachers comes in. This last twenty years teachers even where I lived would come and collect the kids for school and bring them home in the evening. It made a big difference. Thank god all children reading and writing. [Cross talk]
Q. When you were a child, when you were a kid, what sort of things would you do on an average day? What would be your usual day? Get up in the morning and then what would happen? [00:02:55]
JR. Just get up in the morning and wash yourself [inaudible] [00:03:05]. No school and all that.
Q. How would you amuse yourself? [00:03:11]
JR. No Amusements … Mind your brothers and sisters and maybe play around whatever.
Q. Any sort of games that you can remember? [00:03:19]
JR. No. We hadn't even a television.
Q. I dont necessarily mean things you buy but what sort of … I mean … Boys might play football? [00:03:23]
JR. They would play hide and go seek and in the field playing, and swinging off of branches and jump in rivers and things like that we did. That was it, there was nothing to do.
Q. Was that good? [00:03:43]
JR. At first it was a good life, it was a very good life. A lot more pleasant than it is now, even though there is more accommodation and more things but I think the old way was the best.
Q. because you had more freedom? [00:03:52]
JR. More freedom and you weren't afraid to let children out playing, they wouldn't be took or kidnapped nothing would happen to them. You could let them walk a mile to the shop on a black lonesome road and there was never no danger.
Q. That was where you were in Ireland? [00:04:09]
JR. Wherever you were, even in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Wherever you were.
Q. So you travelled up to Northern Ireland as well, well of course you did. Okay. maybe before we go any further about sort of more modern day travellers could you tell me a little bit about the idea, kind of, what’s important to travellers? Why do travellers have a need to travel, first of all? [00:04:14]
JR. Travellers never settle because it is in their blood. Our fathers and mothers and fathers and mothers before them and went down for hundreds of years, was always travellers. So they were called tents at that time, no caravans. And ponies and carts. There was no vans.
Interviewer. That's in your culture
JR. That’s in the culture.
Q. [Stammering] There is hostility from certain people or from governments or whatever in terms of making laws in places where you can't stop for a couple of months or a time. How do you feel about that? [00:04:58]
JR. I feel the sites is very good and a very good idea and we are all very happy in them. Hackney council is very good for providing sites, there is just not enough. My only family now is married and some of them are stuck in houses and they don't want to be. And there’s loads of families married, twenty families here. So there could be thirty or forty couples married, we have been here eight year ago. And they’ve no place to go.
Q. What do you think about … some people … They really really don't want to be in the houses, theres no desire to integrate, to become a part of what would be mainstream society? [00:05:48]
JR. No. The people is very nice. We have nothing against the people in the houses because they are very nice, nice neighbours and everything, we just can't settle in them. We just weren't meant for houses.
Q. If you were in a house what would you –? [00:06:12]
JR. If I was in a house I would go mental the week after. It’d be like locking me in prison.
Q. What is it about a house that you don't like? [00:06:23]
JR. All our life we are out in the open and out in the freedom and fresh air and that is the way we were brought up. We wouldn't change it. Not if we tried, if we got fed up, we wouldn’t change it.
Q. Ok. The other thing I wanted to ask you about … I think the Traveller community gets a bit of a bad deal from the public in terms of how it is viewed. Is there anything you’d like to say about … because I have met a number of travellers and they have all been the nicest of people. Is there anything you would like to say? [00:06:38]
JR. There is. Some of the travelling people is like settled community, some of them is good and some of them is not good, but they all get the blame as usual. But you get the bad ones as well as the good ones in the travelling community. Some of them are not very pleasant to people and they do cause trouble and do bad things. They are not all the same.
Q. It is the fault of the small minority, that's probably always the way. I’ve got a number of questions which are more sort of historical about the Hackney travelling community and I don’t really know whether … if you didn't live in Hackney before this site that you'd actually know- ? [00:07:20]
JR. We did live in Hackney but it wasn't on a site, it was in camps.
Q. Did you ever live on the marshes as they were? [00:07:47]
JR. No. We did live in Downs Road and all around Hackney, Tottenham, Dalston, every place.
Q. Rather than me going through all my questions, it's probably better if you can tell me about when you came. You lived in Ireland obviously, you grew up in Ireland? [00:07:59]
JR. Fourteen year in England now.
Q. First of all, why did you come to England? [00:08:13]
JR. Well in England, my family was in it. They got married and they got settled so. But apart from that when the kids were small we were in England. My son was born in Bradford, that is over thirty years now.
Q. Why was it that you came over though? [00:08:28]
JR. Because as I says the children got married, they came and settled here. (Interviewer. You were grown up, yeah.) I wouldn't have anyone at home.
Q. Did you follow and go to Bradford because that was where they were living? [00:08:42]
JR. No that was years ago, that was before they were even babies. At the time my husband came over to get a bit of work. There was nothing in Ireland. He was working. You know they pick up the people in the streets in the mornings early for the work. The lorries picks up so many workers. So working.
Interviewer. And then he went back to Ireland. Right, ok.
Q. Just another question, where do you think of as home? [00:09:07]
JR. Here. Definitely here. [Cross talk]. Here is home. My own mother and father is dead, my husband is dead and his mother is dead, so there is really no one at home. What you would call home. There is nobody at home.
Q. [Laughs] It's a bit like me actually, I wouldn’t dream of going back to where I come from. So when you came over to Britain fourteen years ago, can you tell me where you went? Your children had come across and got married here. Where did you come first of all? [00:09:26]
JR. Paddington. Kings Cross, Paddington. Camped in caravans. It was good. Fourteen year ago to what it was now, because the people wasn't giving us no hardship. And then they given us, no dumping rubbish around you know. We would get the blame. [Inaudible][00:10:06] So there wasn't any … people didn’t mind us at all. Peoples was very goods
Q. How long did you stay there? [00:10:16]
JR. Well between Paddington and Dalston and Tottenham and Hackney itself all over -
Q. Tell me about Dalston because that's part of our area. [00:10:25]
JR. Well in Dalston as I said we’re in camps, just behind where the market is. (Interviewer. Sorry behind?) You know where the market is, the big market in Dalston (Interviewer. Yeah, yeah, Ridley Road, yeah). And behind that and kinds of facing it as well at the other side of the road. For months and months, we never got no hassle.
Q. What was the name of the road? Because I've got the name of two different sites - Grantham Avenue and Flanders Way. Was that Flanders Way? [00:10:45]
JR. My daughters was there.
Q. Tell me about near Ridley Road … was that official site or you just camped? [00:10:56]
JR. No. We kept the place tidy and left within six months. [Inaudible][00:11:08] The people was very good, even the police [inaudible][00:11:16].
Q. Did you move on because you were ready to move on rather than because you were pushed? [00:11:19]
JR. We just moved on because we had to move on, they started building stuff and
selling the ground and we had to go.
Q. Where did you go to then? [00:11:30]
JR. Back to Hackney
Q. Right, so whereabouts in Hackney? If you could take me through. [00:11:32]
JR. Well Downs Road. And Grantham Avenue, all Hackney.
Q. All the Hackney sites. So once you moved to Ridley Road then you stayed in the Hackney area? [00:11:43]
JR. [Cross talk] That's how we got the site because we kept in the Hackney area.
Q. Well tell me about … Can you tell me a bit about Grantham Avenue then? Where exactly was that? [00:11:50]
JR. That was just off Mirror Street, behind Mirror street, there was a lot of people there for years.
Q. Was it actually a site then or was it …? [00:12:01]
JR. No it was just a pull-in place.
Q. How many families would you say were there? [00:12:06]
JR. There would have been twenty at one stage, I think there were ten families there permanently [inaudible][00:12:15]. But they’re away now, they’re gone now. Been there for years.
Q. Have you got any particular memories of that site or anything that springs to mind? Was it a good place to stay? [00:12:22]
JR. It was. It was a nice place to stay.
Q. What was good about it? [00:12:30]
JR. It was near the shops, near the schools, near the chapels for mass, near everything, near the doctors, it was handy. This site here is a bit far, it is a drive to school, a drive to mass. Drive every place.
Q. Frank told me that that site was called a ‘family toleration site’. Do you know what that means? [Cross talk] I think it means that if youre a family the Council was prepared to let you stay there. If you weren’t then … ? [00:12:47]
JR. That was it, yes.
Q. Where did you go from there when you moved? [00:13:06]
JR. When we moved from Downs Road, we moved in here. We got the site from here.
Q. So you came straight to the Waterton site. Can you just tell me if im correct, was this the first site that was ever-? [00:13:13]
JR. That was ever built in Hackney, yeah.
Q. I mean I know why but for the benefit of the tape, explain why there was a need for a site for the community? [00:13:24]
JR. There is a need for another three or four sites at least to be built because, as I says, all our young people and there are a lot of young people in houses. They’re not living well. The houses make them ill, very ill, they need to get sites. My daughter in law for instance has a handicapped baby and she buried three handicapped babies and she is very depressed in the house. Newham hospital, the baby is always in there and the doctors know that she’s depressed. The house, it is a beautiful house but she just can't settle in it.
Interviewer. If you could perhaps just describe [phone rings] Is that your phone? Do you just want to … I'll just pause it.
[Chatter]
Interviewer. Okay, right. I can’t remember where we were, you were telling me about your daughter, weren’t you?
JR. And my daughter in law. And If anybody in the world needs a site it is her. I know everybody deserves a site and needs a pitch, but she really needs one.
Q. Why are the council not able to provide her one? [00:14:55]
JR. Well she went to Hackney, put her name in seven year ago when her first baby died and they just put her at the back of the list for some reason so then [inaudible][00:15:07] and then she buried the other two babies, that was three. Then about four months ago she went down to Hackney council and said her name was down very low although she was seven year in. But she got a letter from the hospital, from the head professor, about the conditions of everything, the baby and herself so maybe, please god, things will go right, might give her a pitch.
Q. Because obviously people who might be listening to the snippets on this tape that we use, they probably never been … I'm sure they’ve never been to the site. Could you just describe what the site consists of and what the facilities are? [00:15:33]
JR. They have running water, hot and cold, a bathroom and toilet of course. And a small kitchen sink to wash dishes or whatever. It is not very big because we don't have [inaudible][00:15:58]. Then again we’re thankful to get them. [inaudible][00:16:01]. They don't complain, they’re very good.
Q. How many pitches are there? What do you get on a pitch? I can see theres two vans and a- ? [00:16:15]
JR. You’re allowed two caravans on a pitch. And of course we build these here because there aren't enough space for the caravans for all the grandchildren.
Q. So you are allowed permanent structures as well? [00:16:29]
JR. We are allowed, yes.
Q. You live in the vans and use the- [cross talk]? [00:16:32]
JR. Yes. If they built the huts bigger we wouldn't have needed them, because we could have made a kitchen out of the huts, but they made them a bit small. If they build any new sites they will make bigger kitchens.
Q. Sorry, I was kind of talking half way through that, so could you just say what you’ve got on your pitch then? [00:16:52]
JR. I have a bathroom and toilet, running water - hot and cold - and a small kitchen sink. Two caravans and our own kitchen.
Q. How would you say, I mean you’ve probably answered this anyway, partially, but how would you say this is a better site than the previous places you’ve stayed in? [00:17:12]
JR. Yes it has been better, it is a permanent place, the children goes to school and everybody has their doctors. The children goes to mass, everything is permanent, but they have never had before. We have a home.
Q. That sense of home is important to you as well? [00:17:34]
JR. It’s very important, yes.
Q. [Stuttering] Do you know how many families live on this- ? [00:17:39]
JR. There's twenty.
Interviewer. There’s twenty, okay
Q. Is there a sense of community amongst all the families? Does everyone know everyone else? [00:17:44]
JR. Ah yes, everybody knows everyone else, yeah.
Q. You would feel quite comfortable going round to other people’s vans? [00:17:52]
JR. Yes no problems. There are always kaling, we call kaling, visiting, one to the other. [inaudible][00:18:01]
Q. You call it ‘kaling’? [00:18:02]
JR. Yeah.
Q. Do you know how you spell that? [cross talk] Okay, I might see if I can find that out. So ‘kaling’ is visiting, just dropping by …? [00:18:04]
JR. An old traveler's word.
Interviewer. Right, okay thats good, we’ll use that [laughs] but it’s not for any particular reason, it's just- [cross talk]
JR. Just as you say visiting, we say going for a ‘kaling’.
Q. I’ve asked you about this already. [Stuttering] First of all I'll ask it in a different way, you've answered me already. Would you like to go travelling again if you were allowed to? [00:18:33]
JR. No not really. What I’d like is more just sites, more sites for everybody's families, not just myself. As I says, all the young groups coming up and all their children now, they have no place to go and when their children grows up they have no place to go. They put them into houses and the cost of keeping a house with the rent and one thing and another, and it'd be handy if they just built the sites for them, even if they have half the accommodation, they’d be more happier, they’d feel more happier, the travelling families.
Q. When you say ‘young groups’, do you mean the children of the people who have been living on this site? [00:19:24]
JR. Yes, my own family now.
[BREAK]
Interviewer. Sorry, so you were just saying when you were talking about the-
JR. My own sons and daughters is married and they have their children now. My eldest granddaughter is fourteen, travellers get married young, they get married about 16-17 and where will they go when they get married? They’ve is no place to go. They won't be left to squat as the council won't allow them. And there is no place anywhere. It means they have to bring into a house or flats.
[Phone ringing; answered phone call - not transcribed]
Q. I was talking about whether you would want to travel to other … I mean, if you could say, if they made more sites and you could keep your pitch here and go off for two months to Ireland or something in the summer, would you want to do that? [00:20:27]
JR. Well they let you go for three months, if you want. But we don't, I wouldn’t want to go. We don't want to leave here, we want to settle here.
Interviewer. That’s because you're settled here, yeah.
JR. You don't want the bother of moving off. They talking about building new sites, two new sites because this ground has been sold, it’s worth a lot of money. So we are looking forward to our new sites because, as I says, the kitchen is bigger and bit more accommodation that we haven’t got.
Q. Looking to the future, that’s what you’re thinking about? [00:21:12]
JR. That’s what I'm thinking, definitely not thinking of leaving.
Q. Have you got any ideas of where you would like to-? [00:21:17]
JR. Hackney area. As long as it is in the Hackney area
Interviewer. Somewhere in Hackney. Okay. That's brilliant. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.
[Chatter]
[00:21:33] END OF INTERVIEW
Q. Ok this is Alex Sydney recording on the morning of the 4th of June 2001. For the benefit of the tape could you just say your name and place? [00:00:00]
Josie Riley (JR). Josie Riley
Q. Josie Riley and when and where were you born? If you don’t want to say when you were born – [00:00:12]
JR. Enniskillen. County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland
Q. If we could start off the interview just by talking a little bit about what you remember about your childhood, and about growing up and so forth. Could you tell me a little bit about your family? [00:00:24]
JR. We were travelling people and would always travel around the country, never stayed on sites. Always needed new sites because you couldn't pull in places. It has now all changed now, you have to stay on the sites now, permanently.
Q, When you were travelling around, how many people would there be, or how many vans? [00:00:46]
JR. There might be four vans or five, usually big families, a few together.
Q. How many people would live in a van? [00:00:59]
JR. Well, the father and mother and their own family, six kids or eight kids, whatever. As many as there were in the family.
Q. How often would you say you moved? Was it weekly or daily –? [00:01:12]
JR. Maybe every couple of months, every week sometimes. It depends. If you didn't like the country you move on to a different one.
Q. Whereabouts in Ireland did you travel? Was it all around the country or? [00:01:25]
JR. All Northern Ireland, Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Galway
Q. Where was your favourite? [00:01:34]
JR. My favourite was Cork
Q. Why was that? [00:01:38]
JR. I liked it and the people was very nice in Cork, they were very polite. I had two children born in Cork. That is one of the reasons.
Q. Right [laughs] As a child, obviously if you’re travelling around you wouldn’t go to a fixed school or anything like that? [00:01:47]
JR. I had no schooling.
Q. Could you tell me about what the travellers approach to bringing up children is then? How it differs from … [00:02:01]
JR. It is different these days, the children are all good scholars. My own children are all good scholars. One is married now, but I couldn't even write my name, just had to make an X.
Q. Why was that? They taught themselves? [00:02:18]
JR. We never got the education. No they got. [inaudible] [00:02:24] At that time your father and mother, the old people alive, there was no school. Nobody ever come to you about school or … so you had to put the kids through school.
Q. That has changed now because people come –? [00:02:34]
JR. That has changed now. Teachers comes in. This last twenty years teachers even where I lived would come and collect the kids for school and bring them home in the evening. It made a big difference. Thank god all children reading and writing. [Cross talk]
Q. When you were a child, when you were a kid, what sort of things would you do on an average day? What would be your usual day? Get up in the morning and then what would happen? [00:02:55]
JR. Just get up in the morning and wash yourself [inaudible] [00:03:05]. No school and all that.
Q. How would you amuse yourself? [00:03:11]
JR. No Amusements … Mind your brothers and sisters and maybe play around whatever.
Q. Any sort of games that you can remember? [00:03:19]
JR. No. We hadn't even a television.
Q. I dont necessarily mean things you buy but what sort of … I mean … Boys might play football? [00:03:23]
JR. They would play hide and go seek and in the field playing, and swinging off of branches and jump in rivers and things like that we did. That was it, there was nothing to do.
Q. Was that good? [00:03:43]
JR. At first it was a good life, it was a very good life. A lot more pleasant than it is now, even though there is more accommodation and more things but I think the old way was the best.
Q. because you had more freedom? [00:03:52]
JR. More freedom and you weren't afraid to let children out playing, they wouldn't be took or kidnapped nothing would happen to them. You could let them walk a mile to the shop on a black lonesome road and there was never no danger.
Q. That was where you were in Ireland? [00:04:09]
JR. Wherever you were, even in Ireland or Northern Ireland. Wherever you were.
Q. So you travelled up to Northern Ireland as well, well of course you did. Okay. maybe before we go any further about sort of more modern day travellers could you tell me a little bit about the idea, kind of, what’s important to travellers? Why do travellers have a need to travel, first of all? [00:04:14]
JR. Travellers never settle because it is in their blood. Our fathers and mothers and fathers and mothers before them and went down for hundreds of years, was always travellers. So they were called tents at that time, no caravans. And ponies and carts. There was no vans.
Interviewer. That's in your culture
JR. That’s in the culture.
Q. [Stammering] There is hostility from certain people or from governments or whatever in terms of making laws in places where you can't stop for a couple of months or a time. How do you feel about that? [00:04:58]
JR. I feel the sites is very good and a very good idea and we are all very happy in them. Hackney council is very good for providing sites, there is just not enough. My only family now is married and some of them are stuck in houses and they don't want to be. And there’s loads of families married, twenty families here. So there could be thirty or forty couples married, we have been here eight year ago. And they’ve no place to go.
Q. What do you think about … some people … They really really don't want to be in the houses, theres no desire to integrate, to become a part of what would be mainstream society? [00:05:48]
JR. No. The people is very nice. We have nothing against the people in the houses because they are very nice, nice neighbours and everything, we just can't settle in them. We just weren't meant for houses.
Q. If you were in a house what would you –? [00:06:12]
JR. If I was in a house I would go mental the week after. It’d be like locking me in prison.
Q. What is it about a house that you don't like? [00:06:23]
JR. All our life we are out in the open and out in the freedom and fresh air and that is the way we were brought up. We wouldn't change it. Not if we tried, if we got fed up, we wouldn’t change it.
Q. Ok. The other thing I wanted to ask you about … I think the Traveller community gets a bit of a bad deal from the public in terms of how it is viewed. Is there anything you’d like to say about … because I have met a number of travellers and they have all been the nicest of people. Is there anything you would like to say? [00:06:38]
JR. There is. Some of the travelling people is like settled community, some of them is good and some of them is not good, but they all get the blame as usual. But you get the bad ones as well as the good ones in the travelling community. Some of them are not very pleasant to people and they do cause trouble and do bad things. They are not all the same.
Q. It is the fault of the small minority, that's probably always the way. I’ve got a number of questions which are more sort of historical about the Hackney travelling community and I don’t really know whether … if you didn't live in Hackney before this site that you'd actually know- ? [00:07:20]
JR. We did live in Hackney but it wasn't on a site, it was in camps.
Q. Did you ever live on the marshes as they were? [00:07:47]
JR. No. We did live in Downs Road and all around Hackney, Tottenham, Dalston, every place.
Q. Rather than me going through all my questions, it's probably better if you can tell me about when you came. You lived in Ireland obviously, you grew up in Ireland? [00:07:59]
JR. Fourteen year in England now.
Q. First of all, why did you come to England? [00:08:13]
JR. Well in England, my family was in it. They got married and they got settled so. But apart from that when the kids were small we were in England. My son was born in Bradford, that is over thirty years now.
Q. Why was it that you came over though? [00:08:28]
JR. Because as I says the children got married, they came and settled here. (Interviewer. You were grown up, yeah.) I wouldn't have anyone at home.
Q. Did you follow and go to Bradford because that was where they were living? [00:08:42]
JR. No that was years ago, that was before they were even babies. At the time my husband came over to get a bit of work. There was nothing in Ireland. He was working. You know they pick up the people in the streets in the mornings early for the work. The lorries picks up so many workers. So working.
Interviewer. And then he went back to Ireland. Right, ok.
Q. Just another question, where do you think of as home? [00:09:07]
JR. Here. Definitely here. [Cross talk]. Here is home. My own mother and father is dead, my husband is dead and his mother is dead, so there is really no one at home. What you would call home. There is nobody at home.
Q. [Laughs] It's a bit like me actually, I wouldn’t dream of going back to where I come from. So when you came over to Britain fourteen years ago, can you tell me where you went? Your children had come across and got married here. Where did you come first of all? [00:09:26]
JR. Paddington. Kings Cross, Paddington. Camped in caravans. It was good. Fourteen year ago to what it was now, because the people wasn't giving us no hardship. And then they given us, no dumping rubbish around you know. We would get the blame. [Inaudible][00:10:06] So there wasn't any … people didn’t mind us at all. Peoples was very goods
Q. How long did you stay there? [00:10:16]
JR. Well between Paddington and Dalston and Tottenham and Hackney itself all over -
Q. Tell me about Dalston because that's part of our area. [00:10:25]
JR. Well in Dalston as I said we’re in camps, just behind where the market is. (Interviewer. Sorry behind?) You know where the market is, the big market in Dalston (Interviewer. Yeah, yeah, Ridley Road, yeah). And behind that and kinds of facing it as well at the other side of the road. For months and months, we never got no hassle.
Q. What was the name of the road? Because I've got the name of two different sites - Grantham Avenue and Flanders Way. Was that Flanders Way? [00:10:45]
JR. My daughters was there.
Q. Tell me about near Ridley Road … was that official site or you just camped? [00:10:56]
JR. No. We kept the place tidy and left within six months. [Inaudible][00:11:08] The people was very good, even the police [inaudible][00:11:16].
Q. Did you move on because you were ready to move on rather than because you were pushed? [00:11:19]
JR. We just moved on because we had to move on, they started building stuff and
selling the ground and we had to go.
Q. Where did you go to then? [00:11:30]
JR. Back to Hackney
Q. Right, so whereabouts in Hackney? If you could take me through. [00:11:32]
JR. Well Downs Road. And Grantham Avenue, all Hackney.
Q. All the Hackney sites. So once you moved to Ridley Road then you stayed in the Hackney area? [00:11:43]
JR. [Cross talk] That's how we got the site because we kept in the Hackney area.
Q. Well tell me about … Can you tell me a bit about Grantham Avenue then? Where exactly was that? [00:11:50]
JR. That was just off Mirror Street, behind Mirror street, there was a lot of people there for years.
Q. Was it actually a site then or was it …? [00:12:01]
JR. No it was just a pull-in place.
Q. How many families would you say were there? [00:12:06]
JR. There would have been twenty at one stage, I think there were ten families there permanently [inaudible][00:12:15]. But they’re away now, they’re gone now. Been there for years.
Q. Have you got any particular memories of that site or anything that springs to mind? Was it a good place to stay? [00:12:22]
JR. It was. It was a nice place to stay.
Q. What was good about it? [00:12:30]
JR. It was near the shops, near the schools, near the chapels for mass, near everything, near the doctors, it was handy. This site here is a bit far, it is a drive to school, a drive to mass. Drive every place.
Q. Frank told me that that site was called a ‘family toleration site’. Do you know what that means? [Cross talk] I think it means that if youre a family the Council was prepared to let you stay there. If you weren’t then … ? [00:12:47]
JR. That was it, yes.
Q. Where did you go from there when you moved? [00:13:06]
JR. When we moved from Downs Road, we moved in here. We got the site from here.
Q. So you came straight to the Waterton site. Can you just tell me if im correct, was this the first site that was ever-? [00:13:13]
JR. That was ever built in Hackney, yeah.
Q. I mean I know why but for the benefit of the tape, explain why there was a need for a site for the community? [00:13:24]
JR. There is a need for another three or four sites at least to be built because, as I says, all our young people and there are a lot of young people in houses. They’re not living well. The houses make them ill, very ill, they need to get sites. My daughter in law for instance has a handicapped baby and she buried three handicapped babies and she is very depressed in the house. Newham hospital, the baby is always in there and the doctors know that she’s depressed. The house, it is a beautiful house but she just can't settle in it.
Interviewer. If you could perhaps just describe [phone rings] Is that your phone? Do you just want to … I'll just pause it.
[Chatter]
Interviewer. Okay, right. I can’t remember where we were, you were telling me about your daughter, weren’t you?
JR. And my daughter in law. And If anybody in the world needs a site it is her. I know everybody deserves a site and needs a pitch, but she really needs one.
Q. Why are the council not able to provide her one? [00:14:55]
JR. Well she went to Hackney, put her name in seven year ago when her first baby died and they just put her at the back of the list for some reason so then [inaudible][00:15:07] and then she buried the other two babies, that was three. Then about four months ago she went down to Hackney council and said her name was down very low although she was seven year in. But she got a letter from the hospital, from the head professor, about the conditions of everything, the baby and herself so maybe, please god, things will go right, might give her a pitch.
Q. Because obviously people who might be listening to the snippets on this tape that we use, they probably never been … I'm sure they’ve never been to the site. Could you just describe what the site consists of and what the facilities are? [00:15:33]
JR. They have running water, hot and cold, a bathroom and toilet of course. And a small kitchen sink to wash dishes or whatever. It is not very big because we don't have [inaudible][00:15:58]. Then again we’re thankful to get them. [inaudible][00:16:01]. They don't complain, they’re very good.
Q. How many pitches are there? What do you get on a pitch? I can see theres two vans and a- ? [00:16:15]
JR. You’re allowed two caravans on a pitch. And of course we build these here because there aren't enough space for the caravans for all the grandchildren.
Q. So you are allowed permanent structures as well? [00:16:29]
JR. We are allowed, yes.
Q. You live in the vans and use the- [cross talk]? [00:16:32]
JR. Yes. If they built the huts bigger we wouldn't have needed them, because we could have made a kitchen out of the huts, but they made them a bit small. If they build any new sites they will make bigger kitchens.
Q. Sorry, I was kind of talking half way through that, so could you just say what you’ve got on your pitch then? [00:16:52]
JR. I have a bathroom and toilet, running water - hot and cold - and a small kitchen sink. Two caravans and our own kitchen.
Q. How would you say, I mean you’ve probably answered this anyway, partially, but how would you say this is a better site than the previous places you’ve stayed in? [00:17:12]
JR. Yes it has been better, it is a permanent place, the children goes to school and everybody has their doctors. The children goes to mass, everything is permanent, but they have never had before. We have a home.
Q. That sense of home is important to you as well? [00:17:34]
JR. It’s very important, yes.
Q. [Stuttering] Do you know how many families live on this- ? [00:17:39]
JR. There's twenty.
Interviewer. There’s twenty, okay
Q. Is there a sense of community amongst all the families? Does everyone know everyone else? [00:17:44]
JR. Ah yes, everybody knows everyone else, yeah.
Q. You would feel quite comfortable going round to other people’s vans? [00:17:52]
JR. Yes no problems. There are always kaling, we call kaling, visiting, one to the other. [inaudible][00:18:01]
Q. You call it ‘kaling’? [00:18:02]
JR. Yeah.
Q. Do you know how you spell that? [cross talk] Okay, I might see if I can find that out. So ‘kaling’ is visiting, just dropping by …? [00:18:04]
JR. An old traveler's word.
Interviewer. Right, okay thats good, we’ll use that [laughs] but it’s not for any particular reason, it's just- [cross talk]
JR. Just as you say visiting, we say going for a ‘kaling’.
Q. I’ve asked you about this already. [Stuttering] First of all I'll ask it in a different way, you've answered me already. Would you like to go travelling again if you were allowed to? [00:18:33]
JR. No not really. What I’d like is more just sites, more sites for everybody's families, not just myself. As I says, all the young groups coming up and all their children now, they have no place to go and when their children grows up they have no place to go. They put them into houses and the cost of keeping a house with the rent and one thing and another, and it'd be handy if they just built the sites for them, even if they have half the accommodation, they’d be more happier, they’d feel more happier, the travelling families.
Q. When you say ‘young groups’, do you mean the children of the people who have been living on this site? [00:19:24]
JR. Yes, my own family now.
[BREAK]
Interviewer. Sorry, so you were just saying when you were talking about the-
JR. My own sons and daughters is married and they have their children now. My eldest granddaughter is fourteen, travellers get married young, they get married about 16-17 and where will they go when they get married? They’ve is no place to go. They won't be left to squat as the council won't allow them. And there is no place anywhere. It means they have to bring into a house or flats.
[Phone ringing; answered phone call - not transcribed]
Q. I was talking about whether you would want to travel to other … I mean, if you could say, if they made more sites and you could keep your pitch here and go off for two months to Ireland or something in the summer, would you want to do that? [00:20:27]
JR. Well they let you go for three months, if you want. But we don't, I wouldn’t want to go. We don't want to leave here, we want to settle here.
Interviewer. That’s because you're settled here, yeah.
JR. You don't want the bother of moving off. They talking about building new sites, two new sites because this ground has been sold, it’s worth a lot of money. So we are looking forward to our new sites because, as I says, the kitchen is bigger and bit more accommodation that we haven’t got.
Q. Looking to the future, that’s what you’re thinking about? [00:21:12]
JR. That’s what I'm thinking, definitely not thinking of leaving.
Q. Have you got any ideas of where you would like to-? [00:21:17]
JR. Hackney area. As long as it is in the Hackney area
Interviewer. Somewhere in Hackney. Okay. That's brilliant. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.
[Chatter]
[00:21:33] END OF INTERVIEW