New Age travellers, not completely synonymous with but otherwise shortened to New Travellers (often referred to as "crusties"), are people in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs along with the

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

culture of the 1960s (overlapping with

Bohemianism Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people and with few permanent ties. It involves musical, artistic, literary, or spiritual pursuits. In this context, bohemians may be wanderers, a ...

), and who used to travel between free

music festival A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or h ...

s and fairs prior to crackdown in the 1990s, who now congregate in community with others who hold similar beliefs on various authorised and unauthorised sites. A New Traveller's transport and home may consist of living in a van, vardo, lorry, bus, car or caravan converted into a

mobile home A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or on a trailer). Us ...

while also making use of an improvised bender tent, tipi or yurt. "New Age" travellers largely originated in 1980s and early 1990s Britain, when they were described as "crusties" because of the association with "encrusted dirt, dirt as a deliberate embrace of grotesquerie, a statement of resistance against society, proof of nomadic hardship."

History

Origins

The movement originated in the free festivals of the 1960s and 1970s such as the

Windsor Free Festival The Windsor Free Festival was a British Free Festival held in Windsor Great Park from 1972 to 1974. Organised by some London commune dwellers, notably Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle, it was in many ways the forerunner of the Stonehenge Free Festiva ...

, the early

Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contemp ...

s, Elephant Fayres, and the huge

Stonehenge Free Festival The Stonehenge Free Festival was a British free festival from 1974 to 1984 held at the prehistoric monument Stonehenge in England during the month of June, and culminating with the summer solstice on or near 21 June. It emerged as the major fre ...

s in Great Britain. However, there were longstanding precedents for travelling cultures in Great Britain, including travelling pilgrims, itinerant journeymen and traders, as well as

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

groups and others.

Peace convoy

In the UK during the 1980s the travellers' mobile homes—generally old vans, trucks and buses (including double-deckers)—moved in convoys. One group of travellers came to be known as the Peace Convoy after visits to Peace camps associated with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The movement had faced significant opposition from the British government and from mainstream media, epitomised by the authorities' attempts to prevent the

, and the resultant Battle of the Beanfield in 1985—resulting in what was, according to the

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...

, one of the largest mass arrests of civilians since at least the Second World War, possibly one of the biggest in English legal history. In 1986 and later years police again blocked travellers from "taking the Stones" on the

Summer Solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...

. This led Travellers to spend summers

squatting Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

by the hundreds on several sites adjacent to the A303 in Wiltshire. Later events included the Castlemorton Common Festival, a huge free and unlicensed event which attracted widespread media coverage and prompted government action. Some legal festivals, such as WOMAD, continue to take place in a variety of countries, including the UK.

Outside the UK

Following the crackdowns against aspects of New Age Traveller culture and the free festivals, some ceased travelling altogether and others headed to continental Europe to pursue continuance of the lifestyle. A North American counterpart to the UK-based New Age Travellers and former free festivals, is the

Rainbow Family The Rainbow Family of Living Light is a counter-culture, in existence since approximately 1970. It is a loose affiliation of individuals, some nomadic, generally asserting that it has no leader. They put on yearly, primitive camping events on ...

which was formed around 1970 and which hosts annual

Rainbow Gatherings Rainbow Gatherings are temporary, loosely knit communities of people, who congregate in remote forests around the world for one or more weeks at a time with the stated intention of living a shared ideology of peace, harmony, freedom, and respect. ...

. Meanwhile, housetruckers in New Zealand have maintained an alternative, "hippie nomad" lifestyle.

References

Films

Pierre Carles Pierre Carles (born April 2, 1958) is a French documentarist, who has often been compared to Michael Moore for his use of the documentary form to denounce mainstream media, which he accuses of having conflicts of interest. Filmography * ''Juppé, ...

,
Volem rien foutre al païs
', co-directed with Christophe Coello et Stéphane Goxe, 2006. A French documentary film about various ways of living on very low income, as many travellers do). * Martin Parry http://www.swindonviewpoint.com/video/outsiders. Documentary on the Beanfield and trials and tribulations of the Peace Convoy/New Age Travellers. *
23 Teknivals
', directed by Zena Merton MA, 2006. A five-minute video montage of travellers' life on the road, free festivals and warehouse parties in Europe ( Teknivals) and of the wake of a teenage English traveller, Sonny, in England that was attacked by riot police.

Further reading and external links

* O'Brien, Mark and Ashford, Chris. "'Tribal Groups' in Modern Britain: Legal Theory, Legal Practice and Human Rights" 002/3''Contemporary Issues in Law'' Vol 6, Issue 2 180-206 * Gardner, Peter. "Medieval Brigands, Pictures in a Year of the Hippy Convoy" Published 1987 by Redcliffe, Bristol. * Colville, Fergus.
Timeshift: New Age Travellers
'

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

, August 2005 * Lodge Alan
A gallery of New Age Traveller images, mostly from the 80s and 90s
Retrieved 2008-11-04 *

'

"Many of these images

rom New Zealand Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...

come courtesy of Chris Fay, previous editor and publisher of Roadhome NZ, a now-ceased publication for road folk." * Staff
BBC 2003

Inside Out Inside Out may refer to: *Backwards (disambiguation) or inverse Books * '' Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd'', by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason * ''Inside Out'', Christian book by Larry Crabb * ''Inside Out'', novel by Barry Eisler ...

, BBC, 20 January 2003, "After being forced to camp illegally for years, Brighton Council are the first to introduce a legal site for New Age Travellers". * Worthington, Andy (Jun 2005) ''The Battle of the Beanfield'', Enabler Publications and Training Services, , * Worthington, Andy (June 2004). ''Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion'', Alternative Albion, , * UK Hipp

and Tribal Livin

counter-culture community websites.
A Different Light
Youthful travelers in contemporary America: An interview * {{DEFAULTSORT:New Age Travellers Counterculture Glastonbury Festival Modern nomads Transport culture Counterculture festivals activists New Age Squatting in the United Kingdom