Caravan Life - invading travellers, threats of murder, night time fights - it's all happening here!

Hearing of our circumstances (of no fixed abode, dossing in a caravan) people frequently ask us, ‘What’s it like living on a caravan site?’ In truth, it’s a microcosm of life outside, different only in that it’s largely a changing population, rotating from week to week. Its quiet Monday to Friday, then come the weekend the population doubles, and with that can surface some problems...

It’s a bit like Christmas. More relationships fall apart on the back of the festive season, than at any other time of the year, apparently.  People are thrown together who normally only see one another at weekends, tensions increase, arguments over visiting relatives and organising THE BIG DAY can all end in tears – and divorce.

Caravanning can be like that. Not seeing one another all week, then come the weekend, they’re hitching up and moving out to the countryside. They arrive at the site, things have to be set up, then you’re tired from the journey, hot and sweaty, but there’s still the awning to erect. Entertaining for everyone else as the air turns blue and the first domestic of the weekend has happened.

We’ve seen our fair share of that from the comfort of our own awning, sipping a glass of wine or two, as the weekenders have huffed and puffed and tempers have flared.

A quiet wash day at Riverbank Caravan Site

Sometimes those pressures can boil over to extremes, and it isn’t funny.

I thought I was a light sleeper, and according to Linda, she doesn’t sleep a wink. Yet two domestic incidents occurred – one right next door – and we slept blissfully unaware through it all.

I was filling the aquaroll with water at the communal tap when a chap who was doing his recycling said, “What did you make of last night?” I looked at him quizzingly. “You know, it woke everyone up! Didn’t you hear the police car? Three o’clock this morning.”

Apparently screaming woke people up, and outside they found a woman in a distressed state, wearing only her night clothes. The site owner appeared, and someone called the police, who arrived a few minutes later. The woman did not want to press charges, so the police took her home to Manchester.

 It was the same about a week later. The site owner came over to talk to us while I was frying bacon for breakfast. “The people who were pitched next to you have asked me to apologise on their behalf.” Linda and I exchanged glances, and I shrugged. “What for?”  Malcolm shook his head. “You didn’t hear the bust-up early on Sunday morning?” Linda caught the toast as it popped out of the toaster, and looked up. “What bust-up?”

A middle aged couple, their grown-up daughter and two grandchildren were pitched next to us. We hadn’t heard a thing all weekend. But in the lead-up to the early morning altercation, the wine and beer had been flowing. The daughter had received some text messages from her ex-partner, saying he was missing her and the children. In her drunken state she said she was going to put the kids in the car and drive over to him. Apparently it was all very emotional, and very traumatic. Her parents  grabbed the car keys, and she fought back, voices were raised, and there was the slamming of car doors, before she was stopped. They finally subdued her, but after a sleepless night, they packed up and left early.

We never heard a thing. So much for, ‘I can’t sleep a wink’.

One of our more permanent neighbours was Mr Knott. I say ‘was’, because he’s no longer here. And it wasn’t through his choice he went.

David Knott was on the next pitch to us when we were on the smaller ‘CL’ site. He moved onto the higher field (which is neither part of the CL nor the commercial site) when he got flooded during heavy rain. “Look!” he said aghast, as we walked past, his wellies in three inches of water. We were mainly dry on our pitch, and there is some suspicion the flooding was not caused by the weather.

When I mentioned it to Malcolm, he pulled a face. “It’s happened before, when it hasn’t rained. He was pitched near the reception then and I found it flooded outside. He said it had rained, but it hadn’t – everywhere else was bone dry. He’d been filling his waterhog with a hose pipe, and had forgotten about it. I admit there was rain this time - but I think he’s done the same again!”

Whatever the truth, Mr Knott got a move to one of the new pitches on the higher field. When we left the site for a week, we joined him, on our return. It’s quieter up here, especially when the site’s packed at weekends.

David Knott was a joiner. In his sixties, he was thin and wiry with black hair and a beard. His caravan was bedecked with wind chimes, bird feeders, a weather vane and hanging baskets. Once he parked a converted horse box outside. It was an amazing piece of kit. On the outside were strapped ladders and a workmate. Inside were shelves of screwdrivers, chisels, planes, an electric drill, screws and nails, securely clipped into place. A joiner's Aladdin’s cave.

I was telling Malcolm about it, but he seemed unimpressed. “All he needs is some work and then he can pay me what he owes.” Mr Knott hadn’t been paying his site fees.

He told us he’d got some work at a local Indian restaurant. He said if we mentioned his name ‘we’d be well looked after’. Apparently he was almost a member of the family. The restaurant owner’s gran had died suddenly, and John had driven him to Birmingham in the early hours of the morning, as he was in no fit state. Now David had been invited to the daughter’s Hindu wedding. He was chuffed!

Mr Knott's caravan - bedecked with charms and talismans

You weren’t always sure Mr Knott was telling the truth. He came home one day and said he’d been in A & E for hours. He’d been lifting some heavy oak doors, and his back had gone. They’d X-rayed his back, and David told us he had two slipped discs. It hadn’t seemed to affect his mobility much. I thought he’d be bent over and in agony, or at least walking with difficulty. I did give him the benefit of the doubt, and filled his 50 litre water barrel when he wasn’t there. You did wonder.

When we returned after a trip to Ireland, his caravan was there but David wasn’t. We’d noticed before we’d left that he was leaving earlier than normal, and not coming back until about ten at night. At the time we thought he was working long hours and then eating in the Indian restaurant. But now I think he was avoiding the owner.

After a week of not showing, I asked the owner what had happened to him. Linda and I thought he might be in hospital with his back, or on holiday. “I’ve evicted him,” the owner said. “He hasn’t paid me for ages. I just need him to take his caravan away!”

A few days later Mr Knott appeared and set about hitching up his caravan – after the owner had threatened to drag his caravan off the pitch with his tractor! I went out to speak to him. David told me a tale of some travellers who he’d caught trying to break into his converted horse box. He’d got some of his pals from Liverpool to come over, and they’d gone to the travellers’ camp and threatened them with murder if they’d try to steal his tools again!

“I’ve settled up with Malcolm,” he explained, but I’ve decided to move because I don’t want the travellers following me here, and giving the owner trouble. In any case, I’ve been offered a job in Barbados, training apprentices. I think that’s where I’m heading next!”

Apparently he’d paid off a good portion of his debt, but not all of it. The owner was glad to see the back of him.

Mr Knott might have got inspiration for the traveller’s tale from the site owner. Malcolm told us that he’d been alerted when two gypsy caravans had been towed onto the site. The owners had left, it seemed, to bring more caravans. Malcolm acted swiftly. He towed them off the site and onto the road – then called the police. Five police cars appeared to stop any trouble! "Worse day of my life," Malcolm concluded.

We wonder if Mr Knott has gone to Barbados, ever went to the Hindu wedding, or had the travellers killed...

Watch this space.

Read my novels; Stench of Evil https://goo.gl/VQOVuS and The Devil in Them https://goo.gl/aS1cjZ in ebook format and paperback...)