An Addendum To The Social Contract.

Specifically this article; https://watchitdie.blogspot.com/2025/02/its-time-to-renegotiate-social-contract_28.html

The story I told there is the true story. When I got roped into helping train that Dog myself, my friend, his girlfriend all lived on the same street. So were around each other's house all of the time. As were many other mutual friends. However the total lack of conventional boundaries. A lack of boundaries so complete it would probably shock even Miley Cyrus. That probably had something to do with his girlfriend's past as a New Age Traveller.

This is something which really began with the American Hippy counter-culture of the 1960's. A handful of British people trying to emulate Woodstock. However the 1970's Britain went through a long period of Stagflation, with high inflation and low wage growth. In the 1980's Britain experienced a short of Economic shock therapy, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which led to really high employment. Particularly youth unemployment.

With no chance of getting a job. So no chance of getting a house, getting married etc. Lots of young people started buying cheap vans and buses and living in them. On the road, travelling around. This is part of the inspiration for the #VanLife! that's become popular amongst Social Media influencers. Although a big difference is that New Age Travellers had a strong sense of community. So would travel together in large convoys. What a; "Caravan" actually is.

I don't know if you've seen something like a Mercedes Sprinter van but they're really not that big. So vans were really where people slept and stored their stuff. Everything else was done outside, in the public park or field where the convoy was parked. This was a sort of collective, communal space where everybody was really in everybody else's kitchen.

The Half-Time Show really looked that the Urban Geography of Los Angeles. How being a network of separate neighbourhoods connected by Freeways increases Social Isolation and Ghettoisation. How the Urban Design school of Brutalism specifically uses that Social Isolation to crush the individual to get them to serve the Marxist collective with absolute obedience. 

The communal living of New Age Traveller communities is really the opposite. Although cities and towns are examples of Human settlements. By definition Traveller communities don't settle so don't have settlements. Making the comparison about as useful as me pointing out that the Urban Geography of LA is very different from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Occasionally the people on a convoy would play some records and have a bit of a party in their shared living space. Sometimes those parties would get rather large. That's how Rave Culture was born.

Margaret Thatcher's government saw the increasing number of people just opting out of society as a threat to society. So almost declared war on the New Age Travellers. Certainly closer to a war than a civilian government should be in against its civilian population in a democracy.

In June 1985 a few hundred New Age Travellers decided to form a big convoy to go have a bit of a party near Stonehenge. On the orders of the government the police secured a High Court Injunction preventing the convoy from going anywhere near Stonehenge. Setting up an exclusion zone and roadblocks. 

When the convoy arrived at the roadblocks the police forced it off the road, into a bean field, and proceeded to attack the convoy. Although this did result in the largest number of arrests in British peacetime history, 537, the police's objective wasn't to arrest the Travellers. It was to beat them up and destroy their vehicles/homes and other property. The army even got involved to shoot people's pet Dogs. This became known as; "The Battle of the Beanfield (1985)."

The following year Margaret Thatcher's government introduced The Poll Tax, technically "Community Charge." This was a tax that people had to pay in order to register to vote. Although not aimed solely at New Age Travellers the Poll Tax was another part of Margaret Thatcher's war against them. The public backlash against the Poll Tax forced Margaret Thatcher to resign as Prime Minister. However her Conservative government continued. Introducing the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act (1994) in revenge against New Age Travellers, making Rave Culture illegal in Britain.

Obviously this woman was someone I knew socially. Rather than someone I was interviewing as research for that PhD thesis my university is still convinced I'm going to write. However I seem to remember what caused her to leave the New Age Traveller convoys was that her two children reached the age that the legally had to attend school. Prior to that they'd been born on and lived their entire lives on the convoys. If they were Horses and it was the New Forest they'd get a special certificate.

A big theme of the Super Bowl was the UK's 2024 Summer Riots. These were predominately in White working-class areas. Similar to; "White Trash" in America these people are often, dismissively, called; "Chavs." That seems to be a mangling of the Roma Gypsy word; "Charvey" meaning; "Child." These vast Social Housing Estates/Projects seeming to be built to house the Travellers who've been forced to settle down due to the law requiring that their children have to attend school.

The fact that this woman had two children who were old enough to have attended school in the early-1990's should tell you that she was quite a bit older than my friend and I. We both started attending school in the late-1980's. So we were probably closer in age to her children. Just in case there's a section of the audience I still haven't managed to scare off by mentioning that she is/was bisexual.

As for the Dog herself. That amateur attempt at Domestication seems to bear all the hallmarks of Irish Travellers.

Roma Gypsy, Irish Traveller and New Age Traveller are all distinct communities. New Age Travellers are really the rich White kids who heeded Timothy Leary's call to; "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out." Although 1980's expansion did start to draw in the White working-class. While men in Irish Traveller communities are expected to be accomplished in bare-knuckle boxing by the age of about 5 or 6 years old. So they actually have very little in common.

However they do have the fact that they're all travellers in common, sharing life on the road. So there is certainly a lot of contact and even overlap between the communities. I've discovered that certain family names along with transferrable skills, relating to Horses, can quickly bridge a lot of the gaps. Although it is a part of my life I've learnt not to discuss too loudly when I'm visiting my Mothers near Stonehenge.

17:18 on 12/3/25 (UK date).