https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8j1003z8n2o First Minister John Swinney has apologised for a state-sanctioned social experiment on Scotland's #Gypsy #Travellers.
In what is known as the "#TinkerExperiments", which ran from the 1940s to 1980s, authorities aimed to "settle" travellers by […]
#TinkerExperiments excerpts from the 1895 report which gave the green light to the experiments. Note the ref to Pitlochry, where the first assimilation camp was established and still exists, and the desire to have the community *extirpated*, ethnic cleansing by any other name.
A longer read on the #TinkerExperiments and their impact www.thenational.scot/news/24031536.cultural-g...
#TinkerExperiments #ChildTrafficking A lovely email came in overnight from Canada. The grandson of a girl trafficked from Liverpool. He included images of her and the list of all the other children who were trafficked with her. He thanked me for raising the issue here.
#TheLongWalkForJustice #TinkerExperiments @ScotGovFM So there we have it. The end of the working week and still radio silence from the Minister. Know this @Emma_Roddick I won't let your distain get in the way of me starting my journey to a trauma free future. Game on, missy.
#TinkerExperiments Intergenerational trauma/blood memory - "The once radical idea that such changes in gene expression can be inherited now has a growing body of evidence behind it". www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/2209262...
#TinkerExperiments - forever suspended in a state of exception. ayeright.scot/history-on-the-edge-the-...
The #TinkerExperiments was/is a programme of which child trafficking was just one part. This video featuring Shamus and Roseanna McPhee, living in the first and one remaining experiment camp, explains its breadth and depth. https://www.grthm.scot/the-tinker-experiments
#TheLongWalkForJustice I'll be 67 on January 13th. Even in my wildest dreams I could never have predicted that I'd be celebrating it tramping the roads of Fife on my long walk to the Scottish Parliament. #TinkerExperiments
#TinkerExperiments The Departmental Committee on Habitual Offenders, Vagrants, Beggars, and Inebriates in Scotland, [1895] was the report that gave the green light to the attempted extirpation of Scotland's Gypsy Traveller community. Below is a brief over view of its impact.
#TheLongWalkForJustice #TinkerExperiments The trouble with being untruthful is that once the first lie has been told you almost certainly will have to tell others as evidence to the contrary emerges - tangled webs, as the saying goes.
#TheLongWalkForJustice #TinkerExperiments It's been a busy old day. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has read and shared my posts. Till tomorrow, folks.
#TheLongWalkForJustice #TinkerExperiments I am heartened by all the messages of support and offers to walk with me along the route. For those who I haven't connected with, here is my latest blog which includes a video of a recent research trip to Canada....
That's the dubbin on the boots and the trusty auld waxed jacket redone. Waterproof breeks and staff getting the treatment tonight. All ready for the 'long walk for justice'. #TinkerExperiments #ApologyNow
That's me on the left, aged 21. I was renowned for taking no sh*t then and more than 40 years on that hasn't changed. Come the new year I'll be upping my campaign for an apology - no punches will be pulled. #TinkerExperiments #ApologyNow👊👊
1/ 🧵#TinkerExperiments Just getting my programme of meeting organised for Canada. I get there late evening 4th Nov and have my first meeting at 9am on the 5th with Board members of the British Home Children including the person who did the research on the unmarked graves.
#TinkerExperiments Nothing matters, action plans are meaningless until the elephant in the room, that is child trafficking and forced sedentarism, is addressed. Surely no modern democracy can stay quiet about trafficked children being described as 'little slaves'.
#TinkerExperiments 'Canada's little slaves'. This plaque, sent to me by a local, sits in a park in Athens, a few miles from Brockville.
#TinkerExperiments a reminder that Nazi eugenicist, Wolfgang Abel, was welcomed to Scotland by Ambassadors, Politicians and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
🧵1/ #TinkerExperiments I've been asked what I mean by 'Holding Site' when describing Quarrier's base in Brockville. [The below image of children held at Quarrier's, Fairknowe is courtesy of Brockville Museum].
#TinkerExperiments More lies from Quarriers. Claims that 98% were doing well and their progress was 'watched'. If they had been watched then the reports would have been very different, i.e. 9yr olds in indentured service. Then there are the 72 recently discovered unmarked graves.
#TinkerExperiments Heading back up the road tomorrow. It's been a worthwhile trip in terms of research and a nice wee break too. That's the field work done for the sites in Scotland. Now time to get the head down and raise enough funds for the visit to the site in Canada.
I've been asked if the Scot Gov are supporting/contributing to my research trip to Canada given child trafficking was part of the #TinkerExperiments and they have said they 'are listening' and will commission qualitative research. The answer is no. No contact, no support.
#TinkerExperiments I posted an image of a toilet similar to what was provided to Gypsy Travellers on an experiment site at Gothens, Meikleour. I'm reposting it here along with part of the testimony of Andra who was on that site as a child.
#TinkerExperiments On page 131 of this book Wolfgang Abel [prominent Nazi] speaks of his time in Scotland in 1938 'observing' Gypsy Travellers and his meeting with the British Ambassador where he 'explained the nature of his investigations' to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
#TinkerExperiments On Quarrier's self written 'glowing reports' full of lies. In the 1895 report they state that any children under 10 get adopted and only those over 12 go into service yet I have evidence that one of our girls was put into indentured servitude aged 9.
#TinkerExperiments Quarrier's say they gave children who were poor, hungry, not in school, not in good health a better life. Yet our girls' [invasive] health and other checks showed they didn't fit any of those categories. So was their ethnicity the reason they were trafficked?
#TinkerExperiments - Quarrier's given reason for trafficking children to the colonies was 'to give them a better life'. I just can't see anything better about a 9 year old girl being used as a housekeeper by a wealthy family. Can you?
On this International Day of the Disappeared I remind you of the many Gypsy Traveller children trafficked from Scotland to the colonies particularly those, who to this day, lie unclaimed in unmarked graves. #TinkerExperiments #UnholyTrinity #ApologyNow
