By Eion Gibbs
Walking through Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and Slovenia the word gypsy didn’t enter my thoughts once. This doesn’t mean Traveller communities don’t exist there, it’s just that they’re so far removed from everyone’s daily lives that there was no cause to call them to mind. (more…)
This article was written by Eion Gibbs, whom I met in Bucharest in April 2015. He was at the tail-end of a great walk across Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul, a ten-month epic in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor. After the furore I caused by expressing my opinion about the Romany Gypsies (in this article), I asked Eion to share his experiences of meeting this minority along the roads of Central and Eastern Europe. To my surprise and delight he offered me this article first, about his impressions from the UK… (more…)