There's a huge difference between Travellers and Romany gypsies. From my experience Romany gypsies are law abiding and respectful, roaming our countryside, often in their colourful, horse drawn caravans, seeking work, fruit picking in season and to my mind adding to our heritage. Even if they have motorised vehicles they are still very 'house proud' and keep them in immaculate condition. Some of you may say that I'm looking through rose coloured spectacles but that's how I see it.

On the other hand, I have also had experience of Travellers. As recently as last summer they invaded our cricket ground. Our players were actually having a net practice when about a dozen caravans came through the open gates and parked on the outfield. They were aggressive and demanded money to leave. We obviously didn't pay them. The police were present but had no authority to move them on. After quite a few heated conversations we decided to contact a retired bailiff who lived in the village. He came down with 'official' documents, well they weren't really but they couldn't read, and he told the them that they had 24 hours to remove themselves.
It was now getting dark and we told them that we had security cameras in the pavilion so that any damage would be on camera. This was actually true. We just stayed there standing around when suddenly they just removed themselves from the ground. The police said that they had never seen this happen before. We were very lucky. Not pleasant people.