ALL the gipsies want, they say, is to settle down on the edge of Eckington and be accepted as part of the community.

They want to pay their council taxes, have a refuse disposal and postal service and send their children to nearby schools.

This week the site has been a hive of activity with fathers with shovels laying hardcore to form a road through the site.

Electricity and water have been installed on their two acre field and each of the dozen or so caravans have their own private gravelled areas bounded by inner fences.

Spokesman for the gipsies, who wanted only to be known as Robert, said: "Not bad for three days' work. We have got flush toilets and everything. If the council let us, we will convert this into a proper mobile transit site. It won't cost the taxpayers a penny and we will do it to the council's own specs."

Teresa, a grandmother of three said: "We are Christians and want to go to church here. We want our children to go to the local schools and be properly educated. All this work has been done costing thousands of pounds, just on a hope."

Jane, mother of two sons said: "Times have changed. We still do not want to live in houses because of our culture, but we

6 Con't from page one

need our children to learn up to date things like computers. We want to live and let live and become part of the community."

Neither the men nor the women wanted to be photographed they said for fear of reprisals.

Teresa has a job and fears the sack if her boss finds out she is a gipsy living on the site, and Jane is worried about verbal abuse. The children she said were not likely to be targeted.

The gipsies bought the field in Eckington some months ago when they heard the site they said they were on at Moreton Vallance in Gloucestershire was closing down.

Robert said: "We don't want to go from one lay-by or one supermarket car park to another."

They said they were self-employed and did whatever they could turn their hands to, including picking fruit and landscape work. They come from all over the Midlands, but Robert's mother, he said was born in Worcestershire in a traditional gipsy caravan.