A TRAVELLER has revealed what her life was like growing up within the community.
Sabrina Stewart has travelled around the country for most of her life – sleeping in campsites, Asda car parks, and even on the site of Chester Zoo.
And although she has even been shot at whilst living in her caravan, she loves the life on the road.
The mother-of-six now campaigns for a better future for gypsies and travellers who live in the UK, and has even worked with several different charities to help the cause.
Talking to On The Road Podcast, she says: “I’ve gone to too many camps to tell you.
“I’m a mother of six children who I love very dearly, they are my life and what I want to do is to hopefully make a better future for them growing up in this world – because it’s looking quite bleak for our community to be honest.”
Sabrina Stewart, who is a Scottish Traveller, is a trained nurse, activist, and also works alongside the GRTPA (Gypsy, Roma, Traveller Police Association).
On the podcast, she claimed that the police are “one of the biggest issues that the community has problems with” and revealed how she has been targeted by them growing up.
She says: “My personal interactions with the police, as a child, teenager, young woman, mother has always been negative.
“Not because I was a jailbird or I was always getting into trouble far from it, but because the only time we have ever seen police involvement in a camp was when it was something negative.”
Sabrina, who has previously been a guest speaker in Parliament, carries the voice of a lot of roadside travellers.
She says: “I do talks about domestic violence and abuse, and I’ve always had an interest in the law.
“I was hoping to do a changeover from my degree in nursing to Barrister, which I will do when my youngest is a bit older.”
Sabrina continues: “Being a traveller now is so stressful.
“Because if you don’t travel, then according to the law you’re not a traveller, if you do travel you’re breaking the law so it’s catch 22.
“You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
“Personally, I think things have gotten a lot worse for travellers on the road.
“I think it is a good thing that sites are being built.
Being a traveller now is so stressful
Sabrina Stewart
“I think it is good that the council has realised that we do need them for those that want to settle down.
“But for those that want to travel I think things have got a hell of a lot worse with these blanket injunctions.”
Growing up and raising her children as travellers has meant that Sabrina has been targeted.
She explained that when she was living in Northern Scotland “years ago,” Sabrina and her family had camp on a camp site and claimed a “sniper shot through the trailer windows.”
Typically, Gypsies is a term used to describe Romani people, who migrated to Europe from India.
Meanwhile, traveller refers to a group of people who usually have either Irish, Scottish or English heritage.
While many English gypsy girls are allowed to drink alcohol and go on holiday with their friends before they get married, many Irish traveller girls are not allowed to do this.
Generally, both gypsies and travellers will share a similar moral code.
She adds: “That petrified me. And for years I would never go back.”
Sabrina has also experienced discrimination where she has been refused to go to the toilet in coffee shops and supermarkets, whilst also having schools decline her daughters’ places.
She says: “I am discriminated against on a daily basis.
“There are knock-on effects from all of this.”
Sabrina has also lived in a house, but found that it affected her mental health – making her feel “caged”.
She says, although it “sounds ridiculous,” she felt like she was losing herself and “isolated from the community.”
Sabrina says: “In order for me to stay here (in a house), I was going to have to change who I am.”
Sabrina prefers the freedom of travelling, and knows that she can go and live in new places around the country and experience new ways of living easily.
I think it is good that the council has realised that we do need them for those that want to settle down
Sabrina Stewart
She says: “I like to know my home is wherever I want it to be.
“I can hook my trailer on and within 10 minutes, I’ve moved. It’s freedom.
“It’s the sense that I’m going to this new place, and I’m going to meet new people and I’m going to have good experiences and bad experiences.
“But I’m going to have experiences for the next 20 years of my life.
“I’m not going to have the same route to work, or the same route to the shop, I’m going to see different routes and different people.
“I am going to live.”
