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Scottish Traveller Education Programme

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Contemporary Cultural Events

Charles Smith: 20 June 1956 - 8 November 2005

At the end of 2005 Charles Smith, a leading English, Romani community activist and commissioner of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) died after a long illness.

Charles was born in south Essex where he grew up in the large, settled (but mostly hidden) Romani community around Southend. On leaving school he almost immediately started his own successful business, trading antiques at markets and fairs and became an expert in early radio sets. At one point his entire stock was bought out by an Italian Museum. He published 2 volumes of poetry , The Spirit of the Flame (1990) and Not All Waggons and Lanes (1995) and was also involved in making 2 films about Gypsy life, entitled Footsteps in the Sand (2004) and the other concerned with the Gypsy Council.

Other accolades included being a member of the Romani Guild, a secretary in the 1980s of the National Gypsy Education Council and, in the 1990s, chair of the Gypsy Council. Charles and the Gypsy Council became core members of the Traveller Law Reform Coalition. He campaigned for Gypsies and Travellers for over 30 years and will obviously be a great loss to these communities and their friends.