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Lee Richardson
Lee Richardson's picture
Gypsy Blood

Did anyone else see this documentary on Channel 4 last week? If so what did you think of it?

For those who didn't see it the documentary followed, in the main, two Traveller families and gave an insight into their lifestyle. The clips shown to advertise it made much of the fact that they train their children to fight from an early age and that, as adults, disputes are commonly settled by bare-knuckle boxing.

Don't children's karate classes teach them to fight? (And, if not, what do they teach them)?

The fights between the adults that were shown were (to me at least) surprisingly civilised. Times and locations were agreed beforehand, rules were set out (no kicking and no biting) and an adjudicator oversaw each fight.  They were 'cold' settlers, rather than 'hot' violent encounters.

All in all I think they came out rather well.