A small but bitter dispute in an English village tells us much about our relationship to our travelling people. Katharine Quarmby tells the story of the battle of Meriden
Dale Farm, two years ago this autumn, was the largest clearance of Britain's nomads in living history. It had everything the TV cameras could want: masked activists, burning caravans, weeping women Travellers and their children – and men in riot gear evicting them from their homes. But for many from the communities it felt like an aberration: the Irish Travellers there had invited activists in to help them resist eviction. They had courted publicity. Most sites are small – and many from the communities avoid publicity and outside attention.
But if Dale Farm was a TV war, another smaller site, in the Midlands, in the village of Meriden, was more like hand-to-hand combat. The story in Meriden is of a conflict between a handful of families of Welsh, English and Scottish Romany Gypsy heritage who moved on to a field in 2010 which they owned but for which they did not have planning permission, and some in the local settled community. If anything, this story tells us even more about what has gone wrong between Britain's nomads and the wider population.
Noah Burton comes from a well-liked and respected Romany Gypsy family, with roots in Wales, Scotland and the Midlands. Legend has it that one particularly famous member of the family, the bare-knuckle fighter Uriah "Big Just" Burton, "kidnapped" around 75 men in November 1963 in order to have their help in building a monument to his father up on a remote Welsh mountain. He freely admitted to his misdeed, saying that all of the men had promised to help him but some of them needed to be cuffed to honour their promises. (The real story is perhaps a little more prosaic; they were all well paid for their work and went mostly willingly, after a little grumbling.)
Big Just Burton was much respected for his long fight to open up a private site in Wales at which many homeless people had sought sanctuary. He was also thought to be one of the few British Romanies to have operated any sort of kris, or Gypsy law – according to Noah, he was known to fine Romanies for misdeeds, then throw a party twice a year for allcomers (including the wrongdoers) off the proceeds.
Noah's life, too, was more prosaic than that painted in the tabloids, where he was portrayed as the "Bin Laden of Meriden". Noah took on primary responsibility for looking after his mother and siblings when he was just a teenager. He became a highly skilled restorer of antique cars and caravans, and travelled throughout Europe – sometimes going as far afield as Australia and the US – following work. He then returned to the Midlands, where he married Joanna, the daughter of Nelson Smith, of one of the most prominent English Gypsy families, and settled down – with his wife and her family – on a stud farm for pedigree horses at Balsall Common, to raise a close-knit family, of which he is clearly proud.
But when his 20-year marriage broke up, with an elderly mother to care for and no home to go to, he took the fateful decision to occupy a field that he owned, in Meriden, a village some eight miles from Birmingham international airport, but on which he had no planning permission to live. It was 30 April 2010, the Friday before the early May bank holiday weekend.
He never anticipated exactly how the decision to occupy the field would turn out. He and the other families that moved with him on to the site claimed that they had been subjected to a number of incidents since they moved there: threats and intimidation wrapped up in a broiling dispute between some Meriden residents and the Gypsy families living on Noah's field. Looking back, he described the situation. "It's been like world war three here … I never ever realised how much hatred there is towards me."
A group of villagers were incensed that the Gypsies had occupied the site without planning permission. On camera they explained that the site was part of the so-called Meriden gap, a green-belt lung between the conurbations of nearby Solihull and Coventry. Many of the local protesters, led by David McGrath, a former Birmingham city councillor, and Doug Bacon, a former local police officer (plus some well-wishers, who travelled to support them from hundreds of miles away), were clearly fervent countryside lovers, and were deeply upset that the peace of the green belt had been disturbed in this way. Those sentiments were absolutely understandable – even to the families who had occupied the field and acknowledged that they had broken planning law. But it was the model of protest adopted by the residents that came into question.
It all started with the erection of two small camps, named Nancy and Barbara (after the owners of the land), which were set up to picket the site, night and day. Officially, the people there were members of Meriden Residents Against Inappropriate Development (Raid). Raid committed itself, according to its own website to "a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week protest camp"– the home page even included a "count-up" of the camp's time logged, to the day, hour and minute. In another entry on the website, campaigners pledged that they would continue what they called their "vigil" to "monitor for illegal activity".
This constant and unprecedented surveillance both irritated and frightened the small number of Gypsies at Meriden, some of whom were children, older people and disabled women. At a planning meeting of Solihull metropolitan borough council in February 2012, Raid's ceaseless monitoring came up – somewhat inadvertently – for discussion. The meeting's ostensible aim was to decide whether the council would take enforcement action against the Raid encampment, which, like the Gypsy camp, was flouting green-belt rules. McGrath, Raid's chairman, explained to the planning meeting that he had handed over their photos of Burton's field to the council. David Bell, one of the councillors, said that the monitoring had been a help. He claimed that the "Raid camp has been the eyes and ears of the council", going on to say that the organisation was "helping our officers to defend our green belt". He went on to praise Raid members. "How would the council monitor that land 24 hours a day? Residents are doing the job of the council," he said. "If the decision went against the applicant [Raid], if they don't monitor the site, what's the outcome? How do we support the residents to monitor the site to make sure that no further illegal acts take place?"
Council officials appeared somewhat discomfited by the notion, so eloquently expressed by Bell, that local residents could monitor other residents. Later, the director of public communications explained that councillors expressed their own views, rather than council policy. Indeed, the council's lawyer made it clear that the council itself had the authority to collect evidence through its own monitoring. Another councillor expressed what many of the settled community were thinking: "We talk about the 'big society', so why can't we engage local people in monitoring? They [Raid members] have been good citizens … They are trying to defend against illegal actions."
The planning meeting voted, reluctantly, to expel the Raid camp, but the "localists" were the winners of the argument that day. One set of residents – the "legitimate"– were permitted, even encouraged, to police unwanted groups, just so long as they had permission to be on the plot from which they were doing their monitoring. It wasn't the surveillance that was a problem; it was the encampment on green-belt land.
Senga Townsley, a young disabled woman, came to stay on the field with her Scottish Gypsy family. They had worked their way down from Scotland, with her father, William, trading antiques, and working in scrap and tarmacking, and her mother, Susan, keeping house. They had worked mostly in the north of England, but had sometimes travelled further afield, once as far as Canada, where Susan recalled, smiling: "There were nae problems being Gypsies there, they called us barn painters."
But as laws governing travelling became stricter in both Scotland and England in the late 1980s, the life became more difficult for them. Burton and his family had been friends for decades, Townsley explained, and his support and accommodation became more and more vital to them. "When Noah got married to Joanne, we started to overwinter in Trevallion [the stud farm that Noah's father-in-law owned]. When he got separated, that affected way more people than just him."
Initially Townsley had to move into a house in Doncaster for six months with her sister, Susie, her main carer, but found living "in bricks and mortar" difficult – not least because her physical disability meant it was hard for her to go up and down the stairs.
Townsley recalled that another friend without a site had said two years earlier, "I'm going to Gypsy war it," a phrase she had never heard before. She was then told that it meant moving on to a piece of land without planning permission. She had told her friend at that time: "You don't want to do that, it causes real trouble." Two years later the Burton and Townsley families were in the same position. "Noah said, I've got this land, this is what we have got to do, we have to pull on. We need to do it on the bank holiday. So for me to sit here and say we didn't know what we were doing would be a lie, but we didn't understand the ramifications of it."
One prominent former Raid member, who did not wish to be named, had been much involved in setting up the Raid group and was initially supportive of its stated desire to protect the green belt. But the person soon became disenchanted. The atmosphere in Meriden had darkened, the former member said, as villagers took up positions on either side of the fence. There was absolutely no evidence to suggest that Raid members themselves were responsible for any of the racist incidents that then followed, the person was at pains to state, but follow they did. Racist graffiti with the words "Fuck off gipsie [sic] scum" appeared on a railway bridge not far from Burton's field; the perpetrators were never found.
The Gypsies were also threatened on Facebook, with one local teenager posting: "Sixty farmers with shotguns will sort this lot out". The Gypsies at Meriden were worried and referred the matter to West Midlands police, which confirmed that the threats had been published on Facebook. The police then asked the Gypsy families to accept an apology rather than take any formal action against the teenagers who had been involved. The Gypsies agreed to the plan – an "olive branch", as Noah Burton put it, somewhat wryly, before adding: "It didn't work."
The only thing that makes the news is if we pull on somewhere," Townsley said. "Everyone thinks we don't pay taxes, for the large majority, it's not true. It is a fact that property values drop, they work hard for their mortgages, I get that, I feel bad for that, [but] it's not our fault and it's not their fault … It doesn't have to get personal. We do pay taxes. I work for a living – everywhere I have been settled I try to work. I always work when I can. We don't even have a speeding ticket! People print that we are thieves, not citizens – this is our country and … we have a right to have somewhere to live; that's what has to change. People don't want you to exist: the Gypsy problem should just go away; we should just live in a house. Cultural exceptions are made for other people. We just want a chance to live somewhere. We just want a fair chance … We need somewhere to live, so our children can go to school, go to the doctor. That's all we are asking."
Members of Meriden Raid insisted that their campaign was not against Noah Burton, Senga Townsley and the families on the site. They were simply trying to defend the green belt. In the beginning they were successful. Solihull council turned down a planning application made by the Gypsies for eight pitches on the field in July 2010. But the Gypsies appealed against the decision, and tensions in the village remained high.
The following March Solihull council started a full planning inquiry into the proposed site, although Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities and local government, reserved the right to step in and overturn any decision made by the planning inspector if he did not agree with it. Raid campaigners gave evidence, saying that the site had caused a rise in traffic accidents and that it was "inappropriate" for the families to be on green-belt land. Johnny Howorth, a Guardian film-maker, recalled giving evidence at the public inquiry. 'I will always remember a few pensioners, who were vehemently opposed to the Gypsy families staying at Meriden, mouthing swear words at me when I was giving evidence. I have never experienced anything like that. The Gypsies were always keen for me to hear both sides of the story – but some people in Meriden Raid immediately thought I would take the Gypsy side if I talked to them."
He was partly motivated to give evidence by an incident that had occurred outside the council planning meeting in July 2010, when the Gypsies were having their application heard. One Raid member, who appeared to realise he was on Howorth's screen during filming, accused Howorth of "being with the "Gypos" and then tried to bat his camera away. The planning inspector, Phillip Ware, upheld the denial of planning permission.
On 25 October Pickles upheld Ware's decision. He also refused permission for the Gypsies to stay at the site temporarily, saying "the harm is too great". He cited a "serious loss of openness in the green belt which would be exacerbated if other elements of the proposal were undertaken" and the danger to highway safety and to trees. He also cited the "limited likelihood of peaceful and integrated coexistence" in Meriden – something that both sides, at this point, could agree on, at least. Pickles insisted that he had given some weight to the immediate need for Traveller sites in the district, the lack of a suitable alternative site, general health needs and continuity of education for the Gypsies, "but added that such considerations did not outweigh the harms".
Solihull metropolitan borough council asked the residents supporting Meriden Raid to take down their encampment by the end of April 2012. Instead, they remained, and even fortified their presence. By the end the Raid encampment looked rather like a bunker from the second world war. The Burton and Townsley families were supposed to leave Noah's field at the end of March 2013. They had been under the kind of pressure – and, on occasion, subject to racism – that would break many people and yet on many occasions they responded with a degree of empathy towards those who stood against them. On some occasions they had to admit that harsh words had been exchanged, words that some of the families on the site said they now regretted. And sometimes this empathy had been reciprocated by members of Raid, raising the hope that perhaps, if the Townsleys and the Burtons could find a home nearby, there could be some form of reconciliation in the future.
In early April 2013 they started to sell their belongings and move off, a small community splintered for the lack of accommodation. At the time of writing, one of their group had already been moved on by the police twice from stopping places. None of them – women, children, older people and disabled people among them – had anywhere secure to go to.
And the fight at Meriden isn't over yet. The families who moved on to the field had asked for permission for two temporary pitches in a builders' yard next to the field (for two particularly vulnerable members of their group). This had been refused, and they had appealed. The planning inspectorate is now holding a public inquiry about the matter, starting next week. It will cost both sides more money – because the problem of homelessness was never sorted in the first place.
© Katharine Quarmby. This is an edited extract from No Place To Call Home, published by Oneworld Publications Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
Dale Farm, two years ago this autumn, was the largest clearance of Britain's nomads in living history. It had everything the TV cameras could want: masked activists, burning caravans, weeping women Travellers and their children – and men in riot gear evicting them from their homes. But for many from the communities it felt like an aberration: the Irish Travellers there had invited activists in to help them resist eviction. They had courted publicity. Most sites are small – and many from the communities avoid publicity and outside attention.
But if Dale Farm was a TV war, another smaller site, in the Midlands, in the village of Meriden, was more like hand-to-hand combat. The story in Meriden is of a conflict between a handful of families of Welsh, English and Scottish Romany Gypsy heritage who moved on to a field in 2010 which they owned but for which they did not have planning permission, and some in the local settled community. If anything, this story tells us even more about what has gone wrong between Britain's nomads and the wider population.
Noah Burton comes from a well-liked and respected Romany Gypsy family, with roots in Wales, Scotland and the Midlands. Legend has it that one particularly famous member of the family, the bare-knuckle fighter Uriah "Big Just" Burton, "kidnapped" around 75 men in November 1963 in order to have their help in building a monument to his father up on a remote Welsh mountain. He freely admitted to his misdeed, saying that all of the men had promised to help him but some of them needed to be cuffed to honour their promises. (The real story is perhaps a little more prosaic; they were all well paid for their work and went mostly willingly, after a little grumbling.)
Big Just Burton was much respected for his long fight to open up a private site in Wales at which many homeless people had sought sanctuary. He was also thought to be one of the few British Romanies to have operated any sort of kris, or Gypsy law – according to Noah, he was known to fine Romanies for misdeeds, then throw a party twice a year for allcomers (including the wrongdoers) off the proceeds.
Noah's life, too, was more prosaic than that painted in the tabloids, where he was portrayed as the "Bin Laden of Meriden". Noah took on primary responsibility for looking after his mother and siblings when he was just a teenager. He became a highly skilled restorer of antique cars and caravans, and travelled throughout Europe – sometimes going as far afield as Australia and the US – following work. He then returned to the Midlands, where he married Joanna, the daughter of Nelson Smith, of one of the most prominent English Gypsy families, and settled down – with his wife and her family – on a stud farm for pedigree horses at Balsall Common, to raise a close-knit family, of which he is clearly proud.
But when his 20-year marriage broke up, with an elderly mother to care for and no home to go to, he took the fateful decision to occupy a field that he owned, in Meriden, a village some eight miles from Birmingham international airport, but on which he had no planning permission to live. It was 30 April 2010, the Friday before the early May bank holiday weekend.
He never anticipated exactly how the decision to occupy the field would turn out. He and the other families that moved with him on to the site claimed that they had been subjected to a number of incidents since they moved there: threats and intimidation wrapped up in a broiling dispute between some Meriden residents and the Gypsy families living on Noah's field. Looking back, he described the situation. "It's been like world war three here … I never ever realised how much hatred there is towards me."
A group of villagers were incensed that the Gypsies had occupied the site without planning permission. On camera they explained that the site was part of the so-called Meriden gap, a green-belt lung between the conurbations of nearby Solihull and Coventry. Many of the local protesters, led by David McGrath, a former Birmingham city councillor, and Doug Bacon, a former local police officer (plus some well-wishers, who travelled to support them from hundreds of miles away), were clearly fervent countryside lovers, and were deeply upset that the peace of the green belt had been disturbed in this way. Those sentiments were absolutely understandable – even to the families who had occupied the field and acknowledged that they had broken planning law. But it was the model of protest adopted by the residents that came into question.
It all started with the erection of two small camps, named Nancy and Barbara (after the owners of the land), which were set up to picket the site, night and day. Officially, the people there were members of Meriden Residents Against Inappropriate Development (Raid). Raid committed itself, according to its own website to "a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week protest camp"– the home page even included a "count-up" of the camp's time logged, to the day, hour and minute. In another entry on the website, campaigners pledged that they would continue what they called their "vigil" to "monitor for illegal activity".
This constant and unprecedented surveillance both irritated and frightened the small number of Gypsies at Meriden, some of whom were children, older people and disabled women. At a planning meeting of Solihull metropolitan borough council in February 2012, Raid's ceaseless monitoring came up – somewhat inadvertently – for discussion. The meeting's ostensible aim was to decide whether the council would take enforcement action against the Raid encampment, which, like the Gypsy camp, was flouting green-belt rules. McGrath, Raid's chairman, explained to the planning meeting that he had handed over their photos of Burton's field to the council. David Bell, one of the councillors, said that the monitoring had been a help. He claimed that the "Raid camp has been the eyes and ears of the council", going on to say that the organisation was "helping our officers to defend our green belt". He went on to praise Raid members. "How would the council monitor that land 24 hours a day? Residents are doing the job of the council," he said. "If the decision went against the applicant [Raid], if they don't monitor the site, what's the outcome? How do we support the residents to monitor the site to make sure that no further illegal acts take place?"
Council officials appeared somewhat discomfited by the notion, so eloquently expressed by Bell, that local residents could monitor other residents. Later, the director of public communications explained that councillors expressed their own views, rather than council policy. Indeed, the council's lawyer made it clear that the council itself had the authority to collect evidence through its own monitoring. Another councillor expressed what many of the settled community were thinking: "We talk about the 'big society', so why can't we engage local people in monitoring? They [Raid members] have been good citizens … They are trying to defend against illegal actions."
The planning meeting voted, reluctantly, to expel the Raid camp, but the "localists" were the winners of the argument that day. One set of residents – the "legitimate"– were permitted, even encouraged, to police unwanted groups, just so long as they had permission to be on the plot from which they were doing their monitoring. It wasn't the surveillance that was a problem; it was the encampment on green-belt land.
Senga Townsley, a young disabled woman, came to stay on the field with her Scottish Gypsy family. They had worked their way down from Scotland, with her father, William, trading antiques, and working in scrap and tarmacking, and her mother, Susan, keeping house. They had worked mostly in the north of England, but had sometimes travelled further afield, once as far as Canada, where Susan recalled, smiling: "There were nae problems being Gypsies there, they called us barn painters."
But as laws governing travelling became stricter in both Scotland and England in the late 1980s, the life became more difficult for them. Burton and his family had been friends for decades, Townsley explained, and his support and accommodation became more and more vital to them. "When Noah got married to Joanne, we started to overwinter in Trevallion [the stud farm that Noah's father-in-law owned]. When he got separated, that affected way more people than just him."
Initially Townsley had to move into a house in Doncaster for six months with her sister, Susie, her main carer, but found living "in bricks and mortar" difficult – not least because her physical disability meant it was hard for her to go up and down the stairs.
Townsley recalled that another friend without a site had said two years earlier, "I'm going to Gypsy war it," a phrase she had never heard before. She was then told that it meant moving on to a piece of land without planning permission. She had told her friend at that time: "You don't want to do that, it causes real trouble." Two years later the Burton and Townsley families were in the same position. "Noah said, I've got this land, this is what we have got to do, we have to pull on. We need to do it on the bank holiday. So for me to sit here and say we didn't know what we were doing would be a lie, but we didn't understand the ramifications of it."
One prominent former Raid member, who did not wish to be named, had been much involved in setting up the Raid group and was initially supportive of its stated desire to protect the green belt. But the person soon became disenchanted. The atmosphere in Meriden had darkened, the former member said, as villagers took up positions on either side of the fence. There was absolutely no evidence to suggest that Raid members themselves were responsible for any of the racist incidents that then followed, the person was at pains to state, but follow they did. Racist graffiti with the words "Fuck off gipsie [sic] scum" appeared on a railway bridge not far from Burton's field; the perpetrators were never found.
The Gypsies were also threatened on Facebook, with one local teenager posting: "Sixty farmers with shotguns will sort this lot out". The Gypsies at Meriden were worried and referred the matter to West Midlands police, which confirmed that the threats had been published on Facebook. The police then asked the Gypsy families to accept an apology rather than take any formal action against the teenagers who had been involved. The Gypsies agreed to the plan – an "olive branch", as Noah Burton put it, somewhat wryly, before adding: "It didn't work."
The only thing that makes the news is if we pull on somewhere," Townsley said. "Everyone thinks we don't pay taxes, for the large majority, it's not true. It is a fact that property values drop, they work hard for their mortgages, I get that, I feel bad for that, [but] it's not our fault and it's not their fault … It doesn't have to get personal. We do pay taxes. I work for a living – everywhere I have been settled I try to work. I always work when I can. We don't even have a speeding ticket! People print that we are thieves, not citizens – this is our country and … we have a right to have somewhere to live; that's what has to change. People don't want you to exist: the Gypsy problem should just go away; we should just live in a house. Cultural exceptions are made for other people. We just want a chance to live somewhere. We just want a fair chance … We need somewhere to live, so our children can go to school, go to the doctor. That's all we are asking."
Members of Meriden Raid insisted that their campaign was not against Noah Burton, Senga Townsley and the families on the site. They were simply trying to defend the green belt. In the beginning they were successful. Solihull council turned down a planning application made by the Gypsies for eight pitches on the field in July 2010. But the Gypsies appealed against the decision, and tensions in the village remained high.
The following March Solihull council started a full planning inquiry into the proposed site, although Eric Pickles, secretary of state for communities and local government, reserved the right to step in and overturn any decision made by the planning inspector if he did not agree with it. Raid campaigners gave evidence, saying that the site had caused a rise in traffic accidents and that it was "inappropriate" for the families to be on green-belt land. Johnny Howorth, a Guardian film-maker, recalled giving evidence at the public inquiry. 'I will always remember a few pensioners, who were vehemently opposed to the Gypsy families staying at Meriden, mouthing swear words at me when I was giving evidence. I have never experienced anything like that. The Gypsies were always keen for me to hear both sides of the story – but some people in Meriden Raid immediately thought I would take the Gypsy side if I talked to them."
He was partly motivated to give evidence by an incident that had occurred outside the council planning meeting in July 2010, when the Gypsies were having their application heard. One Raid member, who appeared to realise he was on Howorth's screen during filming, accused Howorth of "being with the "Gypos" and then tried to bat his camera away. The planning inspector, Phillip Ware, upheld the denial of planning permission.
On 25 October Pickles upheld Ware's decision. He also refused permission for the Gypsies to stay at the site temporarily, saying "the harm is too great". He cited a "serious loss of openness in the green belt which would be exacerbated if other elements of the proposal were undertaken" and the danger to highway safety and to trees. He also cited the "limited likelihood of peaceful and integrated coexistence" in Meriden – something that both sides, at this point, could agree on, at least. Pickles insisted that he had given some weight to the immediate need for Traveller sites in the district, the lack of a suitable alternative site, general health needs and continuity of education for the Gypsies, "but added that such considerations did not outweigh the harms".
Solihull metropolitan borough council asked the residents supporting Meriden Raid to take down their encampment by the end of April 2012. Instead, they remained, and even fortified their presence. By the end the Raid encampment looked rather like a bunker from the second world war. The Burton and Townsley families were supposed to leave Noah's field at the end of March 2013. They had been under the kind of pressure – and, on occasion, subject to racism – that would break many people and yet on many occasions they responded with a degree of empathy towards those who stood against them. On some occasions they had to admit that harsh words had been exchanged, words that some of the families on the site said they now regretted. And sometimes this empathy had been reciprocated by members of Raid, raising the hope that perhaps, if the Townsleys and the Burtons could find a home nearby, there could be some form of reconciliation in the future.
In early April 2013 they started to sell their belongings and move off, a small community splintered for the lack of accommodation. At the time of writing, one of their group had already been moved on by the police twice from stopping places. None of them – women, children, older people and disabled people among them – had anywhere secure to go to.
And the fight at Meriden isn't over yet. The families who moved on to the field had asked for permission for two temporary pitches in a builders' yard next to the field (for two particularly vulnerable members of their group). This had been refused, and they had appealed. The planning inspectorate is now holding a public inquiry about the matter, starting next week. It will cost both sides more money – because the problem of homelessness was never sorted in the first place.
© Katharine Quarmby. This is an edited extract from No Place To Call Home, published by Oneworld Publications Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.