In response to the woman who wrote in to comment that I am wrong to voice an opinion on behalf of others, I would counter that freedom of speech enshrined in British law entitles me to reflect the widely-held and freely-shared opinion of others in my community.

Your arrogance in suggesting that this is a prejudice based on one single encounter would indicate that you have not bothered to read my original letter properly. My distrust of, and disgust with, the travelling community is based on years and years of personal and shared experience of their range of anti-social behaviours.

And the news that the borough may be opening up even more space for 'static travellers" (surely the ultimate tautology!) has prompted many conversations amongst my neighbours who are deeply concerned about the long-term impact of housing even more travellers here. That's not based on nebulous fear and suspicion stoked up by the media, but rather on hard-earned empirical evidence of living close to the Kiln Lane site.

You say you 'strongly dispute the claims of dog abuse'.

Again, in your haste to fire off a knee-jerk response, you have evidently failed to understand the content of my letter.

No dogs were abused in my encounter with the children - it was a peace-loving, affable, 67 year old lady that was abused. I can understand why they did it, but the Epsom Guardian actually censored one of the key points from my original letter. As well as being threatened with having my dog stolen, these children accused me of having sex with my dog.

Twelve-year-old children, for crying out loud, not only understanding the concept of bestiality, but thinking it is a hugely amusing thing to accuse strangers in the street of committing. So I would respectfully suggest that someone in your community does not share your commitment to "raising our children to the best of our ability and strongly instilling morals and respect".

Dispute if you will, but you weren't there lady, I was!

And finally, may I say how dare you play the racism card and cite the persecution of the Jews. As a British Jewish woman, I am painfully aware of how we and the Gypsies were treated under the Third Reich. The difference is that far from seeking to create our own ghettoes (the National Socialists were all too happy to do that on our behalf), the Jewish community fought hard to be able to assimilate into mainstream culture in the decades following the Holocaust.

There are no Jews or Muslims lobbying for Epsom to designate a dedicated space where we can live and celebrate our own cultures.

Perhaps if your husband and his travelling community concentrated less on furthering their antiquated isolationist agenda and made greater efforts to address the antisocial behaviour of what you assure us is a minority, then you might become more accepted by those of us who choose to live by 21st century society's mores and prefer not to have our quality of life diminished by the feral behaviours of the few.

Name and address withheld

 

 


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