{"id":3104,"date":"2022-06-20T08:30:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T08:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=3104"},"modified":"2022-06-20T09:52:30","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T09:52:30","slug":"reverend-roger-redding-mbe-chaplain-to-the-gypsies-and-travellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2022\/06\/20\/reverend-roger-redding-mbe-chaplain-to-the-gypsies-and-travellers\/","title":{"rendered":"Reverend Roger Redding MBE, Chaplain to the Gypsies and Travellers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kushti Bok is the voice for Gypsy, Roma and Travelling people in Dorset, and for the last three years our Community Engagement Officer has worked closely with the organisation. We\u2019re hoping that a strong relationship with Kushti Bok will lead to better representation of these communities in the records we store.<\/p>\n

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Welcome to Kushti Bok Dorset<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019ve learnt a great deal about the history of GRT people in this area and the current challenges facing this most marginalised of groups. We worked with the Trustees on a bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a project to attract new energy to the organisation and to celebrate the lives and heritage of GRT people in Dorset. This was successful, and the exciting project \u2018Renewing the Legend Pole\u2019 is underway. This will replace a damaged sculpture at Kingston Maurward College and will include a wide range of activities to benefit this community and spread the word about Kushti Bok\u2019s important and varied work.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to find out more about the heritage of GRT people, or perhaps your own GRT roots you could join us in Dorchester\u2019s Borough Gardens on Sunday 26th<\/sup> June when Kushti Bok will be celebrating June as GRT History Month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we have a blog for you from Rev Roger Redding who was the Gypsy, Romany and Traveller Chaplain before his retirement. His ministry took him throughout the West Country \u2013 county borders don\u2019t mean so much to Travelling people \u2013 and he still treasures the friends and memories he made. This is an edited version of an interview Rev Redding did with Betty Smith-Billington in March 2017…<\/p>\n

—
\n\"\"
\n“In 1997 I was made team rector of a group of parishes in Chalke Valley, a very rural parish. I\u2019d been used to working on housing estates and in an inner city, so the countryside was a very different ministry. After a month I thought, ‘Well Lord, why have you put me here?’<\/em><\/p>\n

Two weeks later I think I got my answer. I did my first Romany Gypsy funeral at Coombe Bissett. I was asked to do something I\u2019ve never heard of; to \u2018see the body in\u2019 the night before. So I appeared at this traveller-owned site. There were a number of mobile homes there and this huge tin hut which belonged to Mr Cooper who had died. He was quite a character, he\u2019d been off the road for 80 years. He lived in this corrugated iron structure with windows, similar to a Nissan hut. He did most of his cooking outside and his family lived round him with the horses and dogs. He\u2019d obviously bought this piece of land just after the war as he realised that there were going to be difficulties for Gypsies and Travellers. In those days there wasn\u2019t planning permission; you could buy land easily and settle on it. His nickname was Fur, because he used to say, \u2018It\u2019s too Fur over there.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

There were 50 to 60 people outside this hut. It had been stripped completely, and where his bedroom was they\u2019d hung white cloths. He was laid in state with the coffin lid off, wearing his best clothes. What surprised me was the real deep mourning, like you\u2019d see in the Middle East. People were crying and bashing themselves. At the end, a Romany lady said to me, \u2018You haven\u2019t had much to do with Travellers, have you, mate?<\/em>\u2019 In my heart something said, ‘From now on you jolly well will.<\/em>‘<\/p>\n

A few months afterwards, one of my parishioners in Bower Chalke, Laurie Bissett, said to me, \u2018You\u2019re interested in Gypsies, you ought to meet Dave Rawlings.<\/em>\u2019 On New Year\u2019s Day we looked out of the window and saw this wonderful Gypsy vardo* going up the road with the flap cut behind it with the woman and her children on the back. I said, \u2018I bet that\u2019s that Dave Rawlings, going up to the drove.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

Laurie rang me later, saying, \u2018He\u2019s up by my sister\u2019s farm, you want to go and see him.<\/em>\u2019 I\u2019d never met anybody who was on the road; I\u2019d met settled travellers with their own land but I\u2019d never met a real nomad. There was a bit of apprehension, silly things that came up from the past, \u2018run away from Gypsies\u2019 and all that rubbish. I said a little prayer and went up. There were a couple of vardos and this chap cold-shoeing a horse. I said, \u2018Excuse me, are you Mr Rawlings?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

He said, \u2018Yes, sure, who are you?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

I said, \u2018I\u2019m the local vicar.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Good\u2019<\/em>, he said, \u2018jump up into the wagon, my daughter wants to <\/em>get married.<\/em>\u2019 That started a friendship that has lasted to this day. It opened a door because Dave knew so many Travellers.<\/p>\n

For six years I struggled with the Bishop about whether they\u2019d allow me to become Chaplain to the Gypsies and Travellers. I knew there\u2019d been seven Chaplains between 1888 and 1916, but it all ended in the First World War. It took me a long time to persuade the Church they needed a Chaplain to Travellers. By then I\u2019d got into the politics and the immense problems that Travellers have just to live a nomadic way of life. I felt there was terrible injustice around schools, health, and accommodation. I got involved with the Traveller Coalition who supported the Traveller Law Reform Bill. They felt they\u2019d got to do something for Gypsies and Travellers, to change the laws. It was a group for all Travellers \u2013 Romany\u00a0 Travellers, Irish Travellers, Showmen and New Travellers, all coming together from different backgrounds to lobby parliament. It was quite successful, we had conferences and it was a countrywide thing. I began to meet Travellers from very long distances. I was asked to speak at conferences across the country.<\/p>\n

A group called Simeac (the Churches\u2019 Commission for Ethnic Minority Concerns) came down to see what Salisbury Diocese was doing for\u00a0 Ethnic minorities. I was probably the only one that was doing anything because the Church had turned a blind eye. I spent a morning with them explaining the situation. In the afternoon I took them on Salisbury site, a council site.<\/p>\n

There was a polluted river one side and a railway line embankment the other side. It was the only place where Travellers kept cats because of the rats that would breed on the bank.<\/p>\n

There was a continual problem with people fly-tipping. It was coming up to the year 2000. The group made recommendations to the Archbishop of Canterbury as well as our own Bishop, saying I ought to be taken seriously. They offered me 3 days a week working with Gypsies and Travellers, as a trial for 3 years. At the end of 3 years I\u2019d made so many contacts they thought, ‘We can\u2019t withdraw this bloke!<\/em>‘<\/p>\n

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\nI was the first Chaplain to Gypsies and Travellers in the country in modern times. There had been a number of Chaplains in the Victorian era, a very big era for mission as far as the Church was concerned. One of the things they did was licence me to 5 Diocese because they saw Travellers had no boundaries, so I was given a big area \u2013 I could go to Devon, Bristol, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Salisbury and Winchester.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m retired but I support the new Chaplain, Jonathan, all I can and still get involved with things like Kushti Bok.”<\/p>\n

*Vardo is the name of a traditional wooden horse-drawn wagon used by Romany Gypsies as their home.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

You can learn more about the work that Kushti Bok are doing by visiting their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kushti Bok is the voice for Gypsy, Roma and Travelling people in Dorset, and for the last three years our Community Engagement Officer has worked closely with the organisation. We\u2019re hoping that a strong relationship with Kushti Bok will lead to better representation of these communities in the records we store. We\u2019ve learnt a great… Read more Reverend Roger Redding MBE, Chaplain to the Gypsies and Travellers<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,36],"tags":[82,191,453,23,109,454,192],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3132,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions\/3132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}