London

Waterden Crescent Travellers Site (Hackney Council)

Moving on: Margaret Riley

Julia Riley, 34
‘I was born in Ireland to a family of 14 and we lived in caravans. Gypsy life is great. Living in a house is depressing as there is no one to talk to. Here I can walk out and talk to someone – it’s freedom, truly freedom. The children love it and don’t want to go back to houses. There are about 40 families on this site – there are a lot of people involved.

‘We’ve been told we have to go because of the Olympics, but they haven’t come up with anything definite for us yet. Time is running out because we have to be off this land by next year. I’d rather live here. We are moving to places we don’t know. We don’t know how we are going to settle or how people around us are going to get on with us. It’s hard for the community, splitting up, but you have to accept it. Feature continues

‘At first the Olympics seemed like a good thing. A lot of promises were made, but they haven’t been delivered. They knew that this site would be taken from travellers and they should have come forward earlier with a suitable place for us to live.’

Margaret Riley, 55
‘When the site splits up, it will be a good thing. Small communities are easier to manage; there are too many families here. We hope that we will get better facilities.

‘When I was a kid in Enniskillen, we would move every day. It was nice but there was no school, so we missed out. Some of us are still quite traditional about how we bring up our children. Girls often get married at 16 and are not allowed off on their own, and not allowed to text or go clubbing. If any travelling girl went off the site and got pregnant, that would be her life ruined – no one would ever marry her. We are Catholics and I go to church every Sunday, but the younger generation have different lifestyles and morals. They have washing-machines and dryers, lots of things we didn’t have. I have 40 grandchildren – the youngest is three months, the oldest 19 – and I would like them to carry on the travellers’ traditions.’

Brothers Patrick and John Riley at the Waterden Crescent site

John Riley, 15, and Patrick Riley, 17
John ‘We don’t like the Olympics. It means we have to move from where we have been all our lives. It’s what we’ve been born into and we are happy for that. It’s not that we don’t like sport. We do. We play lots of football here, as well as doing boxing.’

Patrick ‘I’d rather stay on the site. It’s enjoyable, we know everyone here. Sometimes we’ve had a few problems in the street when people call out “pikey”. Or I’ll go into pubs in Hackney and they hear our accents and say “We don’t serve travellers.” ’

Builder Peter Maugham is opting to go into housing

Peter Maugham, 39
‘I intend to go for the housing option. But at the moment they haven’t produced anything definite. I won’t mind living in a house. I’ve got six kids, the oldest is 19 and the youngest is five, so we never really travel any more. ‘I’m from Dublin and came over in 1987 and travelled for about three years.

I moved here in 1990. Eventually the lifestyle will disappear; some people won’t agree, but it is going that way. The kids don’t really know about travelling. They know their roots, but they have always been settled.

‘The old traditions, you can’t use them any more – I wouldn’t know the back end of a horse from the front end. I’m a builder because the older trades aren’t any good, and for the younger generation, education is the key. I had very little education, maybe two years of my life, and I do regret that. Discrimination has happened, you may get it in a pub or a shop, but you have to be proud of who you are.

‘I hope the Olympics works out, but the local people are going to be paying for it. Let’s hope it’s worth it.’