Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

A visit to Smithy Fen

Hewitt | 30.01.2006 02:33 | Repression | Cambridge

A visit to the (mobile) home of Patrick McCarthy, 69, and his wife,
residents of Smithy Fen, Cambridgeshire who are threatened with eviction from their own land and not allowed to maintain their road.

Patrick McCarthy stands in his pot-holed road
Patrick McCarthy stands in his pot-holed road


The photograph shows Patrick McCarthy, aged 69, standing in the pot-holed
road that leads to his mobile home on Victoria View, Smithy Fen, near
Cottenham, Cambridgeshire on 5 December 2005.

Patrick McCarthy and his wife live at Smithy Fen. Married for 45
years, they have 8 children and 23 grandchildren. Sitting in his
immaculately-kept home, on his own land, Patrick McCarthy explained
to me that he has 6 heart bypasses and suffers from angina, yet he is
not allowed to maintain the road over which an ambulance might have to
come in an emergency. A few weeks ago he had been taken to hospital
by ambulance. He had to be held onto the stretcher in the ambulance
because of the holes in the road. His wife, who was in the ambulance,
added that the heart monitor kept cutting out because of them. A high
court injunction prohibits maintenance of the road.

After he had mentioned it a public meeting the day before, I
had cycled out to Smithy Fen specifically to photograph this road.
But Patrick McCarthy told me much more than this. Spotting the familiar
Cambridgeshire wheeled bins, one green, one black, in his yard, I asked
him if the Council collected his rubbish. Yes they do, he told me, and,
in common with others on the site, he pays Council Tax.

He and his wife gave a glimpse of a more conservative and traditional way
of life than that of the majority of England, where according to his wife,
the girls are virgins until they marry and drink alcohol only when they
are married, when they might have a drink or two with their husbands.
Despite the presence of a television in their home, both of them objected
to the foul language of the film (Gadjo Dilo, directed by Tony Gatlif,
France, 1997) shown in Cambridge the day before and said that although
they could not tell whether it accurately portrayed Romania, it certainly
did not portray travelling life here.

I made no attempt to clarify the modern legal labrynth - as he told me
that he was given a "licence" that was then revoked in February 2004,
mentioned two public inquiries, spoke of attending a high court case in
London, and said that injunctions are posted up around the site every
Tuesday - because no amount of legal argument can disguise the fact that
there is something fundamentally wrong with the persecution of an elderly
couple living on their own property. However, the sinister-sounding
"licence", reminiscent of the Soviet Union, would evidently be a good
starting point for elucidation of the important legal background.

"We're not allowed to travel and we're not allowed to settle down",
he said. "At the moment we are under the fear of eviction every day
and it's not doing my health any good".

The Smithy Fen site is a 10 minute cycle ride out of Cottenham, away from
permanent houses. "This site in Smithy Fen is costing them nothing",
he said, commenting on the proposals of Cambridge City Council to spend
250,000 pounds of taxpayers' money on a site near the "Park and Ride"
car park on Cowley Road, and he added that if they closed Smithy Fen
there would be a lot more people stopping illegally in Cambridge because
they have nowhere else to go.

This visit threw into starker relief the insidious nature of
the repetitive "action on travellers" slogan in the local
campaigning tabloid, (Cambridge Evening News) which editor
Murray Morse would have us believe is for their benefit. (
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2005/10/326241.html )
The truth seems to be that at least some of those called "travellers"
do not want "action" or Council money, but simply to be left alone.

As I was about to leave Patrick McCarthy asked me to add that other
locals would be welcome to telephone him to arrange a visit.

Hewitt
- e-mail: sh@cambridgeclarion.org
- Homepage: http://www.cambridgeclarion.org

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech