Revd Canon Jonathan Herbert reflects on solidarity with GRT Communities

A guest blog from Revd Canon Jonathan Herbert, Chaplain to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in the Diocese of Salisbury, who will be speaking at the AMEN Conference 2026 "Power, Solidarity and Belonging" in November.

I’m visiting Bournemouth Horse Fair in my role as Chaplain to Gypsies and Travellers in the Diocese of Salisbury. I drive along a dusty rutted track lined by trees. It’s a good site for a Gypsy horse fair as it’s hidden from the gaze of settled people.  Katie nod’s me in (no parking fee for the vicar) and I pull into a field lined with empty horse boxes, pick-up trucks and Ford Transits. There are smells of fresh horse dung and sweet hay, horses being ridden bareback around a field, horses pulled on small fast ‘sulky’ carts. A number of horses tied up to horse boxes being brushed to look their very best. Men with caps and sticks are wandering round taking everything in. The other side of the field is a more contemporary scene of market stalls, selling washable rugs, cut glass, mirrors, tea towels, baby clothes, burgers, cake and custard. Whole families move around greeting relations and reconnecting with friends. It’s a place of profound belonging.

As a ‘gorger’ (non-Gypsy) I always feel an envy of the tight knit bounds of the Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities. What I don’t envy is the daily casual prejudice and institutional racism both communities both have to endure. Trevor Phillips writing in 2005 described it as ‘the last acceptable form of racism’, and little has changed in the last 20 years and with the advent of Reform and the rise of populism it can be argued that nomadic communities are under greater threat and an easy target for scapegoating. A horse fair and the ‘drive’ tomorrow are one of the few places feel are safe to fully express and take pride in their culture.

As I amble around the fair I meet someone who remembers me from some advocacy work I did around a grave in a council run cemetery. Someone stops to ask if I can arrange for her body to lie in state at a local civic church the night before her funeral, I promise to talk to the local vicar. Another man buys me a tea remembering the time I visited him in prison. A man selling walking sticks and light up mirrors asks me to pray for him and bless his lovely old wooden waggon. Someone tells me he’s being harassed by the rural crimes division of Dorset Police and he’s been arrested for having a 4” folding blade, the charge covers a possible 6 months in prison. I tell him the story of me being found with a similar pen knife as I went to lobby my MP at Parliament, I was let off with a gentle reprimand. It’s typical of how the criminal justice system still targets ethnic minorities.

I think back to when I started as a Chaplain 11 years ago and how awkward I felt wandering around a horse fair or a site where I didn’t know anyone and learning about a culture I didn’t understand. But I believe that solidarity is about being prepared to stay with uncomfortable feelings, risking being vulnerable and not knowing. It’s also about respectful curiosity and giving respect to a different culture. Any sort of Chaplaincy work demands patience and building long term relationships, which means as you begin it being prepared to hang around and feel useless. I’ve always appreciated Teilhard de Chardin’s encouragement to ‘believe in the slow work of God’. Trust takes time to build. Why should Romany Gypsies who’ve been persecuted and scapegoated for 5 centuries trust an outsider like me? The big thing in my favour as a Chaplain is that so many Irish Travellers and Romany Gypsies are Christian and the one institution, they’re most likely to trust is the Church.

That’s why the work of Gypsy Roma Traveller Friendly Churches is so important as an agent of Christ’s prophetic and reconciling love.