LIVING free from restrictions, being able to up sticks and move at the drop of a hat and travel anywhere in the country - that is the life "Lady Lee" has known for all of her 17 years.

The thought of living in a house is abhorrent to Lady, one of a group of travellers who set up camp at Sterte Esplanade in Poole.

"I'd crack up if I was surrounded by four walls all day," she said, sitting beside three brightly polished milk churns outside a caravan, one of 17 parked in the sunshine on the grassy esplanade that looks out across Holes Bay.

When asked where she comes from, Lady replied: "I haven't got a home town."

But every Christmas her group of travellers converge on Birmingham.

"We go there to see our cousins. We get to meet them every Christmas."

In the West Midlands the youngsters in the group also get the closest thing to any formal education when a teacher and a school bus visit to offer some lessons.

But for most of the year there is no schooling as the travellers are constantly on the move every few days - either through choice or because they have been ordered to move on by the authorities.

Lady says she simply learns through experiencing life.

She speaks in a soft, lilting voice and has a bright-eyed, easy and inquisitive manner that is present in the young people on the encampment.

So what does it mean to be a traveller?

"I spend the day looking after the children and cleaning. The others go off to work and then come home and then there is more cleaning to do. Every couple of days we get moved on," said Lady.

When I visited the encampment at Poole it was being kept in an orderly fashion. There was very little evidence of litter. The day before, Poole council confirmed the travellers were picking up litter and using black refuse bags supplied.

There had been no formal complaints from residents about the encampment - something that was appreciated by Lady.

"Usually the complaints are not fair. We sometimes get stones thrown at us or get called Gypsies. But we pick up our rubbish and take it away.

"Some people think that we are all the same kind of people."

And does she enjoy this lifestyle? Would she want to change?

"We get to see different things, do different things and go to different places," said Lady, adding: "I've known no other lifestyle."