"Human frailty Jim - we need our myths....."
We may need ours, but the Travellers most certainly don't.
As I said, the romantic image projected by people like George Borrow, Dora Yates, Leland, Sampson et al may have been with the best of intentions but the fact that it presents a myth rather than a realistic picture of Travelling life has given the non-settled, hostile 'buffer', 'Gorgio' whatever term you use, a very heavy stick to beat Travellers - "They are not real Travellers, why should we have to put up with them".
If you have any doubts on this, I suggest you listen (if you haven't already) to the wonderful sequence of settled people talking about Travellers in The Travelling People, which, not coincidentally ends with Birmingham Justice of the Peace Harry Watton proposing that all Travellers who refuse to conform to settled life be "exterminated".
Travellers we have met and befriended down the years, in real life, proved warm, friendly and generous, often to the point of embarrasing us.
They were excellent company and I have no hestation in saying that our lives were enriched by knowing them - they left their fingerprints all over our lives.
They really need nobody to 'paint out the warts'.
Jim Carroll