I get the impression that the original e-mail was a wind-up aimed at taking a pop at Travellers, and from the quality of some of the responses, he or she was not disappointed.
Thirty years of working with Travellers has proved to me that the Travelling community, while having its share of no-brainers and dead-beats, is no different than any other group or community. During the time we worked with them we experienced generosity, friendship and hospitality (and far more tolerance than I would be prepared to offer anybody who treated me like scum). We were able to record hundreds of songs and stories from them, and thinking back, of the hundreds of sites we visited, there wasn't one we would feel more uncomfortable visiting, than, say, walking up Wandsworth High Street at 12 Oclock at night. If it wasn't for The Stewarts, Jeannie Robertson, John Reilly, Margaret Barry (tinkers all), our music would be very much impoverished.
Shite stories like 'stealing railings', are no different as far as I'm concerned than those about black-men with big willies, and belong in history's dustbin along with lynchings and Belsen. The crap story of Johnny Doran sending round the lads because somebody criticised his music, was exactly that - crap; try telling it around here in West Clare where he is revered as the greatest contributor to Irish music, over half a century after his death.
In the early sixties a Birmingham JP proposed (on the radio) that all travellers who wouldn't conform should be exterminated - perhaps some of you should get up a petition.
Jim Carroll