Further information

Spreading the word

Powerful inspirational women have often emerged from the Gypsy and Traveller community at key moments. Gloria Buckley MBE, is just such a figure.

Meetings with her are variously described as an “experience” and “unique”. Speaking to her for even a few minutes leaves you thinking she ought to be everywhere at once, spreading the word about her "breed", as she calls them. It could save so much community angst.

"Spinning the plates and cracking the whip"

But she can't be everywhere. As it is, she holds down three site management jobs as well as running her own business with husband Trevor, the rock who has been at her side through thick and thin.

She is currently training two other women in site management, which will end with a qualification for both, and could ease the burden on Gloria.

She is not a site manager in any classic sense of the term, but a welfare officer, community relations manager, media relations manager and all-round guardian angel, as well as being a mother of two sons. She sums it up as "spinning the plates and cracking the whip - just like a magician".

Laying down ground rules

Gloria is best known however for the way she has turned round the Roundwell Gypsy and Traveller site at Costessey, in South Norfolk. When she arrived, it was a "rat-infested war zone". Her blunt assessment is a world away from what she and Trevor have made it today.

Together they have transformed it into a national model of what a small, permanent and well managed Gypsy and Traveller site can be like - given the chance.

At first, she and Trevor were not welcome, but they took on Costessey anyway, immediately demanding vacant possession, knowing that was key to success.

Then they set down some common sense site rules, which also covered health and safety and enshrined in those respect for one another, for buildings, countryside and neighbours.

They told their community: “Your word is your bond, and it must be something we can all trust.”

"My people have a lot to offer the community"

When asked whether concerns expressed about Gypsies and Travellers are justified, she does not duck the issue, but is also blunt in return.

"We are part of the human race, a microcosm, and there is good and bad in our community as there is everywhere else. I know people have fears and concerns. I have them too, but there are sites that are run properly, and where that happens, there isn’t a problem.

“We have shown we can run these sites alongside towns and villages. We can integrate into the community and play our part in community life. We have shown we can do it.”

Then momentarily, she recalls the man from the settled community who came to a place where she has Gypsy relations, took a job at the local school, and kidnapped, tortured and killed two little schoolgirls. The painful memory of the Soham murders, which horrified the nation floods back, and is etched on her face.

"That man now has a roof over his head and regular daily meals," she added. "But my people get chased from place to place because some of them make a mess."

"For us community means common unity"

"My people have a lot to offer the community,” adds Gloria. We have pride and respect and we believe in family. We were organic conservationists before people started bandying those words around as fashionable. We never take more than we need because that leads to greed. And this is the century when everyone will be coming back to their roots and to nature."

She talked of her father and mother, and the natural wisdom they passed on to her.

"We knew about star formations and the changes in the moon. We could read the hedgerows and the countryside. My people are originally from Hampshire, where they bred horses. They followed the army trading with them, and blacksmithing, long before the army did it for themselves. They also travelled with the great artist Sir Alfred Munnings, and served the King and Queen.

"For us community means common unity. When we pull onto a site for example, we put our strongest at the entrance, and our most vulnerable at the back to protect them. My mother and father taught us survival, and we have never forgotten that. We never starved."

Awarded for her efforts

Gloria is rarely lost for words, but she and Trevor have been forced to sit in frustrated silence at meetings with Government Ministers and civil servants, when all seemed lost is fruitless arguments and debate. Unable to cope any longer, she has risen to her feet and after holding the meeting spellbound, speaking without notes, she has turned it around.

Her tireless work for her people and for community relations has now been recognised in a way she never expected. She was recently awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

She said: "That unnerved me. It made me wobbly. You must understand, it's difficult when you've got nothing, and you are from outside the system."

She now confesses to being like a little girl again, waiting for what the post will bring. And it brings many letters from strangers and friends congratulating her.

Giving children opportunities

Now she wants to see real and urgent action to provide more permanent and temporary sites for Gypsies and Travellers. She says it is essential because “they give our families choices, opportunities and privileges we've never had before.

“We want our children to become what they can be, through choices of their own. If we teach them to read, they'll read to learn. But we don't let schooling interfere with learning", she adds, quoting Mark Twain.

"I think my people need empowering because with that comes responsibility, accountability and liability. And because we have not had many stopping places, generations and generations of our children have been let down. These are children who could have had the same opportunities and choices as everyone else.”

Time for action

She believes Gypsies and Travellers have waited long enough:

"When I get invited onto groups to talk about sites, I want something done. I'm no token Gypsy. The trouble is we are masters of debate in this country.

“There are thousands of square miles out there and we are 1 per cent of the population. All we want are 1,200 pitches in five eastern counties. Let's get on with it.

"Sites mean we can get our children through school and through the system so that they come out with confidence to take their place in society and be upstanding human beings. That surely is what all of us want.”

She concluded:

“All over the world, people are demanding to be understood, but many are not willing to understand. If they were, conflict of any kind would be over. One of the real shortages in the world today is human kindness.”

Related pages on this website

• LDF: Gypsy and Traveller Development Plan Document (DPD)