Dale Farm: Olivia's Story

Much of the media would have us believe that those individuals supporting the Dale Farm travellers from eviction are either ‘rent a mob’ anarchists or trouble makers.

OBV alumni Olivia Boland, like many other activists driven by desire to see justice, dispel that myth. Olivia took part in OBV’s first MP shadowing scheme. A Conservative by nature, she shadowed former Health Minister John Gummer.

This is her story about her time at Dale Farm.

I took my gas barbecue in my old grand voyager and stocked up on supplies from Tesco in Ipswich. I went there and made lots of burgers, sausages and fried eggs (the camp kitchen is strictly vegan, and quite a few were glad to get some meat and eggs after a week of vegan food!)

I didn't know they were going to do a "lock down" of the entrance, so my car and barbecue had to be left behind beside one of the traveller's cabin. My daughter drove her car to come pick me and my friend Susan up last night. There is a secret winding passage between the illegal and legal part of Dale Farm that allow people to get in and out, which involved jumping down a wall (I told an old lady with a Zimmer frame and wheelchair who came from London to protest that it will be unsuitable for her to use it to get in) but not vehicles.

Susan, in her sixties, is from a titled family and has a distinct posh accent. She was interviewed and photographed quite a bit on site, to show the variety of people who had come to show their disapproval of the way the matter had been dealt with.

I thought I had to sleep rough but Maria, an elderly traveller kindly opened her cabin for seven women, strangers to her, while she went to her daughter’s cabin. Maria's cabin was quite comfortable with two bedrooms and a nice sitting room, kitchen, shower/toilet. We had access to all the news channels but I found Sky News to be the best because we could see the Sky reporter on a high platform during the live coverage from Maria's window as the same time as it was on the TV.

In my experience, the traveller community is unpretentious, warm and open. They come and go into each other's cabin freely, most of them related and the little children play in the ground without having to be followed by the parents as it is safe as the people live on site are related one way or another, so there is no danger to the children. This probably was how we used to live a long time ago.

Sky had set up three platforms for filming which could be transported at different heights. They were set up in the garden of the famous neighbour who hates the travellers - it was rumoured he was paid £20,000 by Sky to use his garden for the structures (if that is the case, I bet he wants the travelers to stay now).

There were several women in their 70s who were there as campaigners - one even sat in front of Maria's cabin ready to be locked to the cabin as we thought the bailiffs were going to come into the site after lunch following Tony Ball's confident announcement that site would be evicted by the end of the day. Being locked down to the cabin is a method that would take a while to disengage to delay the removal of cabins and caravans. I gathered that she was on the greenham common many years ago against the American cruise missiles.

However, with the huge amount of media on site, the real eviction when it comes, will be filmed and broadcast for many days. It will be a propaganda disaster for the government, I think. Politicians are meant to be good at finding solutions for all side but it seems they have boxed themselves into a corner.

Olivia Boland