www.media-box.co.uk
We are the video crew at New House Traveller Youth Club and this blog is a record of our DVD production. We are making two videos, one is about living on sites and the roadside showing what life is like for young Travellers today.
The second one is about how our grandparents used to live and travel in the days when they used to live in horse drawn caravans. We are going to go back on the road for a few days with a local Gypsy Traveller who has some restored wagons, but first we will have to do some research to find out what life was like and also to learn about making films.During the Autumn we practiced with the video camera at our Youth Club which meets every week in Sittingbourne.
Mediabox has given us a grant to work with a local film maker, Simon Evans of Open Productions.
Friday nights are just for Travellers, whole families come....
Young people of all ages come to the club which is organised by the Youth Division of the Canterbury Gypsy Support Group, it is run by Travellers for Travellers. Some of the young people come from a local site, others live in nearby houses and some are still on the roadside, constantly moving around the area because they have nowhere else to go.There is football, pool, an art room, video making and a refreshments bar.
At the end of the day I'm a Gypsy, I'm proud of it and I'm never going to change that....
I'm Lena and this is me with my sisters and baby cousin at home in my trailer. I am a Romany Gypsy, years ago my grandparents used to travel round Kent in a horse drawn wagon. Today all my family lives on a local authority site because it's not easy to travel any more as there is nowhere to stop. OUR HOME
It's good to see a lot of Travellers from all different parts of the country in one place....
I'm Blue boy and I'm 14 years old, we went to the traditional Gypsy horse fair at Stow in the Wold. there are fairs like these all over the country and they are very important events for Gypsies and Travellers. Not only as somewhere to trade and buy and sell horses, harness, and Traveller fashions but also as meeting places to come together and exchange news. STOW FAIR
My school's really great, I've loads of friends and the teachers are really good....
On Friday afternoons at the school we have been learning about Gypsy Traveller history and culture.Most of our families have been in the area for generations, travelling around working on farms. We have also been learning more Romany language and it's origins in India as well as about the holocaust. This is Uncle Joe helping us with our workbooks. WHAT WE DID
It was nice to se the old times and the wagons it was kushti....
Paulton Park in Hampshire has a Romany experience which we visited to see what life was like in the old days when Gypsies travelled in horse drawn wagons. It gave us a much better idea of the past than just looking at old photographs and films, it really brought it all to life. There is more about our trip and what we found out HERE
We are Shannon and Pebbles and in January we were living on an old piece of disused road. When we started filming we had only been here a few days because we had just been evicted from an old industrial estate. Other families and friends soon joined us as there was room for quite a few caravans and like us they had nowhere else to go. MORE ABOUT OUR FILM
I'm Johnny. I'm going to go on the road with the old horse drawn wagon when we make our second film. To get some idea of what to expect we went to see my great gandmother to interview her about life in the old days. HERE'S WHAT SHE TOLD ME