ALBA Party’s National Executive Committee has given its support towards calls for an official Government apology for a controversial post-war act.
The so called “Tinker Experiment” saw members of the travelling community placed in specially provided huts, geographically detached from the rest of society, in a bid to break them into joining the rest of the population and effectively kill off their culture.
Members of the travelling community have been campaigning for an official apology from the Scottish Government. Members of the community provided an educational awareness session of their campaign at the last meeting of Alba Party’s National Council.
The Tinker Experiment began just over a century ago. In a deputation to the Secretary of Scotland in 1917, it was claimed that “with kindly treatment, tinkers could be reclaimed and brought into line with ordinary civilisation”.
Then chair of the Department of Tinkers in Scotland, the Duchess of Atholl, asked for a Scotland-wide census on the numbers and social make-up of these communities.
This was an attempt to measure what was called at the time in the press as the “Tinker Problem”, and then solve this problem by assimilating travellers into mainstream Scottish society by threatening to remove their children into care.
It is believed by the travelling community that thousands of individuals were forced to exist in properties with no hot water, electricity or proper washing facilities. Those who refused had their children taken into care.
Throughout the 20th-century huts to house travellers were built in at least 10 different locations across Scotland.
Perthshire Council initially bought a former WWII prisoner of war hut to be used as housing for four gypsy families. In a letter from 1945 concerning the creation of the property, the council ignored bylaws for minimum standards of housing, instead applying regulations intended for tents, vans or sheds.
The huts were deliberately substandard to encourage travelling families to quickly move into mainstream accommodation and so be assimilated into Scottish society, reasoning no-one would put up with the property for more than three years.
However, this assimilation was difficult as many gypsies felt they couldn’t practise their own culture living in a council estate isolated from their own community. Those affected have repeatedly asked the Scottish Government for an apology, but without success.
Now, ALBA Party have pledged their support to calls for an apology.
Commenting Alba Party Equalities Convener Eva Comrie said:
“The lives of many Gypsy Travellers have been blighted by this experiment over the course of the past 100 years and more.
“The devastating impact which these policies had on families, many of whom are still suffering the consequences, and the diminishment of an entire way of life, is a stain on Scotland that should be rectified.
“As part of meaningful actions to tackle the discrimination and challenges faced by the gypsy/traveller community, there must be recognition that this group was failed by the state therefore Alba Party wholly supports calls for an apology from the Scottish Government.”
At this time of devastation caused by Kwarteng and his fellow greed driven monsters , Scottish families , families with children , pensioners on the miserable state pension , ALL having to FORCIBLY choose between heating and eating , and a SG and FM twiddling their thumbs unwilling to FACE UP AND CONFRONT this tory scum .
Is this really a priority in the scale of things where our people are currently facing horrendous decisions and hardship , is this not on the same priority level as pardoning witches which the current SG was ridiculed for
What is the reasoning behind this , are the people in government who caused this still in power , are the people who suffered the injustice still alive , have there been very many injustices carried out against other members of the Scottish community eg Thalidomide , Haemophiliacs and many others , are ALBA going to prioritise demanding apologies from the SG for every injustice carried out against certain sections of society
Without being disrespectful or argumentative to anyone , I have concerns that representatives are focusing on personal hobby horses (no disrespect to the traveller community) than the target of independence
We have and are currently witnessing what happens to political organisations when focus is taken up with individual good causes or personal beliefs
Malnourished Children
Nae offence tae the travelling people. Alba are becoming the SNP.
Alba focus focus its independence, we can solve many things when independent.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde saw nearly 4000 hospital admissions of children under 18 with malnutrition between 2018 and 2022. One third of Glasgow children live in poverty. In 2021 alone the figure was 1000. Malnutrition can involve just a lack of food, but also relates to deficiencies in energy and nutrient intake or low weight-to-height ratio, stunted growth or being underweight.
I’m the Equalities Convener of the Alba Party and doing the job Alba members elected me to do. If you follow me on Twitter you’ll see my views and actions on other matters, almost all of which are to do with inequality and poverty. Those are some of the reasons why I support our party’s drive for Scottish Independence as a matter of urgent necessity.
Yes it’s one of many subjects I’m interested in both personally and in my remit as Equalities Convener, an elected post. Are you an Alba member? You might want to regard the content of our website where there are multiple policies but the principal aim is Scottish independence. We can walk and chew gum though.
“my remit as Equalities Convener, an elected post.”
More huggy-fluffy, pinko nuttiness from Scotland. What is all this guff about ‘equality’?…….You’re going to make doctors lawyers dentists and engineers equal to labourers?……Can’t be done….ever ….anywhere. Mind you, you can try. I saw it in Czeckoslovakia, back in the good old commie days in the (19) sixties and seventies. A dumper truck driver got paid about the same as a top class doctor. Guess what? Every young Czeck or Slovak wanted to be a dumper truck driver, rather than submit to ten years study and training to be top-class doctor. Then the barriers came down and off goes the doctor to Germany……big fat salary, holidays in Majorca(and Scotland), lovely big house with the mandatory merc parked in the driveway.
Equality convener…….”Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, first they make mad.” Out of all the problems Scotland has, up comes this nonsense about a few tinkers some decades ago. You couldn’t make it up.
I always said that if Scotland got independence, I would return immediately.
I need to revise that idea, because I think all Scotland has gone nuts. I doubt many could run a B&B, best leave that to the English, however there is hope. Rumour has it that Glasgow University is seeking able students( ie with half a brain) to receive instruction in Whelk Stall management.
Here’s to a more prosperous Scotland.
Lots of ideas about how to SPEND money……..Very few, if any, about how to MAKE money.
That really is a rather distasteful comment. I give licence here to all views. I have to say though,I find yours verging on nauseous.I cannot stand racism of any kind you seem to be openly racist. I have to say to you never vent such views on here again or you will not be welcome. On reflection you may wish to amend or take this down you are doing yourself no favours exposing your open hostility to minorities.
Distasteful?…..why? Seems like commonsense, rational argument, plain-speaking and looking after yer ain folk first, have gone out of the window with today’s nationalists.
” I give licence here to all views.” Yes you have done so to date. I was surprised to see my post pass moderation……so thanks for that.
If nothing else, it shows some Scots have alternative thoughts to the lefty/ socialist /commie viewpoint…..to which I am implacably opposed, having seen it in operation behind the iron curtain.
“I find yours verging on nauseous.” Why so?……..No explanation given for this (theatrically exaggerated) reaction.
“I cannot stand racism of any kind”…….OK…….Tell us why. Argue your case instead of just saying so. I’d love to know your reasons (spelled out in plain language) for making such a sweeping statement with no qualification or caveat. Everybody, if they’re honest, is racist to some degree or other.
I am saying no more than thus, my house,my rules. As an aside you refer to the ‘nationalists today’ You are a British Nationalist and they never change. Scratch the surface and the racism seeps out, be it about travellers Scots,Welsh,Irish, black, brown Johnny Foreigner. No wonder you do not acknowledge it because it is ingrained through every part of being a Britnat.
” my house,my rules. ”
Absolutely right, but if I may observe., those rules are not laid down anywhere for the information of the casual commentator, so they have to guess as to what the host deems acceptable.Time and effort are wasted, if replies are censored and replies have to be kept short, hence are uninformative.
The long-term effect is to end up with a nice cosy echo-chamber with everybody agreeing with each other.
How boring is that?
the ‘nationalists today’
Yes, very different from the nationalists of yesteryear…….people like Dr McIntyre, Gordon Wilson and Billy Wolfe, eyes fixed firmly on Scottish independence, the armed forces, trade and industry and currency. None of this stuff about baby boxes, trannies and free incontinence pads….oh…and Equality…..whatever that is.
“You are a British Nationalist”
No. Back in the good old sixties at the High School of Glasgow you could have seen a lone figure arguing for the return of the Scottish Navy, surrounded by about 10 guys hooting and snorting in derision and disbelief.at such a preposterous idea. That lone figure was myself.
“they never change”
Correct. I still argue for the return of the Scots navy…….but the hoots of derision have gone.
Your comments have not been censored. Be assured I will not tolerate racism in any form or religious intolerance. Opposing opinions are welcomed providing they are not given in an abusive way.Just be adult and respectful of others and there should be no problem.
This is a disgraceful, racist comment. The issue is not about “a few tinkers years ago”. The victims continue to suffer into this day, as if you’d care.
What an shameful comment
I don’t understand why tinkers were considered a problem. Many farmers in the Highlands relied upon their labour during busy seasons – howin neeps etc. I remember, in Argyll, being delighted as a young child when old Mrs Macdonald visited with her huge basket full of fancy combs and hair clasps etc. then, after a cup of tea, she “read” my mother’s cup (always good things in the offing!). No TV and only “news” on the radio so her visit was always greatly appreciated. In Sutherland we had the pearl fishers. They, too, laboured in the fields and when they visited always had a selection of beautiful river pearls. So why were these interesting people a problem?
I had no idea they were treated badly but if they were, they certainly deserve an apology.
“They, too, laboured in the fields and when they visited always had a selection of beautiful river pearls. So why were these interesting people a problem?”
Well for a start Freshwater Pearl Fishing is illegal in Scotland as they are protected so don’t you mean that they were Pearl Poaching Scotland’s Natural Treasures ?
That was before it was way before it was regulated, Jean. Many of the jobs that the travelling people did are back in fashion (not pearl fishing, though): fruit picking; field labouring; willow basket-making and other willow work – except that it is not the travelling people who do these jobs now because they were forced out of them. Same goes for travelling itself: it is now a mainstream hobby for those with holiday motorhomes and caravans, rather than a way of life. Irony, indeed.
Although I accept/know that the travelling people of Scotland were badly treated in what was a stupid social experiment that left many alienated from mainstream society, well after most had settled in towns and cities across Scotland, I don’t feel that an apology achieves anything, just as I don’t feel that a pardon is the right way to highlight the cruelty of the witch hunts of our past.
Both these issues need to be highlighted and need to be taught about in our schools, colleges and universities, but we cannot turn the clock back, any more than the Americans can turn the clock back on the cruelty they perpetrated against the native people by setting out to destroy their culture. It is a particularly pernicious form of colonialism and, yes, racism, because it seeks to decouple a people, who see themselves as having a broadly similar culture, from the source of their culture – that is, their way of life, season by season.
The plains Indians (although not all Indians) were nomads, as were the indigenous travelling people who are believed to have descended, at least in part, from the Pictish people of ancient Scotland. It is one of life’s ironies that so many people today love to travel around in caravans or camp in tents, when they despised those who did this as a way of life in the past.
AWoLsco: please don’t come back here with those attitudes. We can manage without you, thanks all the same. Many Scots left, and leave, to find work, and they did/do what they felt/feel is right for them. If they want to come back, fine, but don’t preach to us about what we are allowed to do when you are not even here. The vast majority of Scots have no truck with the SNP’s insane social engineering, but that doesn’t mean that we do not support a socially just Scotland, as far as that is possible.
*Both these issues need to be highlighted and need to be taught about in our schools, colleges and universities, but we cannot turn the clock back, any more than the Americans can turn the clock back on the cruelty they perpetrated against the native people by setting out to destroy their culture. It is a particularly pernicious form of colonialism and, yes, racism, because it seeks to decouple a people, who see themselves as having a broadly similar culture, from the source of their culture – that is, their way of life, season by season.*
I too agree with you we do indeed need to remind ourselves on History and learn from it,
Only choosing to do that improves mankind, those who choose to censor to try to hide the past are
the Devils spawn and always have their own personal agenda’s hidden from the rest of us. https://dundeescottishculture.org/history/confronting-the-legacy-of-slavery-in-scotland/
With all that’s going on the focus on this at this time is so absolutely NuSNP.
Not quite on a par with pardoning witches Eva, but getting there if I may gently say.
There’s an economic holocaust enveloping all of us as heating and lighting soars, food prices soar, as savings and pensions lose their value, as wages stagnate and decline in real value, as interest rates look set to soar, whilst the rich get huge tax cuts.
What is racist about AWOLSCO’s comments? He is entitled to his opinion which I for one share. Your forum should be broad enough to accept such views not threaten to ban them. I defected from SNP to Alba to escape their woke nonsense because I thought the new party would be “laser focussed” on independence.
I see you agree with AWOLSCOs and think everyone is entitled to an opinion except me it seems, could that be because I do not agree with you over the definition of hate speech and racism? As to your membership of Alba true or not I fail to see the relevance of that. I see similar bs on twitter ‘I read your blog so you should not disagree with me.’ Finally you do not think I should be able to decide the rules of engagement on my own site? Now if you would care to pay for the hosting,the domain names and all tge other associated costs your input might be listened to asylum don’t or even subscribe you know my answer
It’s racist, Andy, because it’s not fluffy pink nuttiness in some cases. Black people, Jewish people, and many others, suffered precisely because of who they were. A wealth of evidence exists to prove this. The nuttiness comes in when there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that one or another group of people was actually repressed or is repressed.
The travelling people of Scotland suffered a large degree of alienation from the mainstream culture, and, even when they were forced to assimilate, they still suffered alienation, and their children were subjected to name-calling, being shunned, tormented – not by everyone because there were decent people around, too, probably most being decent, in fact – and it left its mark in a lack of self-confidence, a feeling of never being good enough. I know people are alienated for all sorts of reasons, but being a traveller, or of the travelling community even if settled, was, for many years, a source of stigma in much of Scotland, leading to people hiding their origins for fear of being picked on.
I agree that we are facing Thatcherism all over again, but with fewer resources to sustain us this time, and I do not, personally feel that an apology will make any difference to the hurt and harm travelling people suffered in the past, any more than a pardon will help those poor women accused of witchcraft. The best thing we can all do – and that includes our ancestors’ part in slavery, the Empire and our ancestors’ part in that, and so on – is to remember and endeavour never to let it happen again. That would be a much better legacy to pass on to our children as they, and most of us, were not responsible for historical injustices.
AWoLsco: “… Out of all the problems Scotland has, up comes this nonsense about a few tinkers some decades ago. You couldn’t make it up… ” The evidence suggests that it was several hundred thousand people, and the repercussions are still being felt by some today.
or… “Rumour has it that Glasgow University is seeking able students( ie with half a brain) to receive instruction in Whelk Stall management…” Scotland has always produced and will always produce able young people – many of whom have left for other shores. All countries produce intelligent people whether they are rich or poor, whether they are colonised or imperialist, whether they are large or small as do all social classes. The true mark of a decent country is one where most children, at least, have the opportunity to eat well, live well and have access to a good education, and where they will not be imprisoned or castigated for voicing an opinion. AWoLsco is entitled to his opinion, but he is not entitled to do, from his eyrie in whatever foreign soil, to disparage present-day Scots who did not leave, but stayed, and for the choices they make, when he is far from his native soil with little real knowledge of it anymore.
Thank you for your kind words of support. nice to know that us expats will always be assured f a welcome on returning to the home country.
“When he is far from his native soil with little real knowledge of it anymore.”
Actually I’m about 1-1.5 hrs away from Edinburgh, Glasgow or Stirling (Heard of those new-fangled things called jet aircraft?) and spent the last 6 weeks touring the West Highlands and the Outer Hebrides from one end to the other, camping out, living the life of a tinker or traveller.
Over the years I talked with, and picked up a lot of tips from tinkers, travellers and gypsies because they saw I was interested in bushcraft and living outdoors. Never once did any of them ever mention anything about being an oppressed minority. Neither did any of them mention anything about income tax or VAT.
I assume you are talking to me. I didn’t say you weren’t welcome. I said your attitude is not welcome. We live here. You chose not to, for whatever reason, so I think it’s fair to suggest that you need to leave us be to make our own choices, that’s all. You want to return? Fine by me. Just refrain from telling me what to think. No, they wouldn’t talk about being an oppressed minority: most would never have put their heads above the parapet, AWoLsco. If you were a member of an oppressed minority whose way of life was deliberately destroyed, would you want to pay income tax or VAT? Having said that, many did. Most of their descendants do, since they form at least a third of Scotland’s population, and probably the same of its diaspora.
I asked “What is racist about AWOLSCO’s comments? ” but your intemperate reply failed to explain. Perhaps you should set out your definition of “hate speech and racism” and your site’s “rules of engagement”. Do you want comments that gently disagree with you or just sycophants?
My comment about joining Alba was frustration that their tinker initiative is a distraction from where, as you frequently remind us, we should be concentrating.
There are people alive today in Scotland and elsewhere in the world suffering the effects of the Experiment and the forced removal of children from their families. Whilst I have the power to publicise this and to help to seek justice, I will continue so to do. I’m one voice in a party, all those commenting here are free to do all you can to create the Scotland you want. Nothing I’m doing is preventing that.
Well said, Eva. I don’t agree with apologies and pardons, but I appreciate what you do for Scotland.
Saddened to see some of the comments here. Surely we should highlight all and any injustice. Eva does great work. She listens to my ranting about poverty, addiction, suicides, social injustice. If I were in the travelling community I’d be expecting an apology for the way my family were treated. And when you look into it more its horrific the way they were treated. Just like its horrific right now the way people in poverty are being treated. People who can’t afford their bills are being treated. People with addictions are being treated. We can look at all of these and learn from them. Injustice isn’t just in the here and now. Its past present and future. Eva works harder than anyone sees. We all do.
I agree that Eva is a hard working promoter of independence and is outspoken in her defense of people suffering impoverishment , what I was commenting on is ensuring that the focus on independence is not diluted or diverted by individuals hobby policies , as I have commented previously , in the one prism we had Yvonne opining that there may have been some racism being enacted when the discussion was about the snp sg finding £50million down the back of the sofa to revamp homes for Ukrainian refugees , Yvonne asked why that money cannot be found when it comes to Syrian or other brown refugees
MY argument is that if any money is to be found to help impoverished families in ANY way , that money should be spent on OUR OWN impoverished families first and foremost
.
I am unapologetic that I believe our own indigenous Scots should come BEFORE anyone else , we have witnessed and are still witnessing this grandstanding virtue signaling by politicians of every hue , IMO it is NOT the responsibility of the SG to use Scots hard earned taxpayers money to alleviate the poverty of other countries when we have our own citizens suffering poverty and deprivation . WHO HELPS THEM when our politicians are busy grandstanding and virtue signaling
I am sure many indigenous people or tribes are happy in their poverty whilst incomers and others were busy achieving success at their cost
I believe we give away our nationality too cheaply and if that makes me a nativist so be it , I take great pride in my nation and country
And BTW not everyone has positive interaction with the travelling community , ask all the various councils