"She's intolerant of prejudice and points out that she could so easily judge the settled community for the crimes committed by one of their number, but she refuses to. She recalls Ian Huntley, the man from the settled community who killed two schoolgirls close to one of her sites in Suffolk. The painful memory of the Soham murderer, which horrified Britain is etched on her face. "That man now has a roof over his head and regular daily meals," she added. "But my people get chased from place to place because some of them make a mess."
My people have a lot to offer the community," adds Gloria. We have pride and respect and we believe in family. We were organic conservationists before people started bandying those words around as fashionable. We never take more than we need because that leads to greed. And this is the century when everyone will be coming back to their roots and to nature."
She talks of her father and mother, and the natural wisdom they passed on to her.
We knew about star formations and the changes in the moon. We could read the hedgerows and the countryside. My people are originally from Hampshire, where they bred horses. They followed the army trading with them, and blacksmithing, long before the army did it for themselves. They also travelled with the great artist Sir Alfred Munnings, and served the King and Queen."
For us community means common unity. When we pull onto a site for example, we put our strongest at the entrance, and our most vulnerable at the back to protect them. My mother and father taught us survival, and we have never forgotten that. We never starved."