The Show Must Go On

by Bernard Ross

  The Showmen who owned and ran the rides and machines did not officially approve of these dodgy practices; potentially they played in to the hands of the received view of many flatties, that travelling people, be they gypsies or show people, were criminal and untrustworthy. So every time ‘Scarpering Bert’ disappeared, he was always talked about in ‘he shall never darken our doors again’ tones. However, he was always employed when he showed up on opening night.

  Chapter 7

  And So To Bed

  Now that I was established with Mr Rose he felt that I was entitled to a slightly more luxurious sleeping arrangement than simply kipping on top of an old tarpaulin in the back of a truck. I was to have a ‘bunk’!

  Sadly, this turned out to be less luxurious than it may have sounded.

  Mr Rose’s Waltzer was a metamorphic ride. The basic chassis of the machine could also be configured to run as ‘the Ark’. The Ark was a ride that was not unlike a Galloper or merry go round. It consisted of groups of animals arranged in threes each on the wedge shaped sections of the deck of the machine. The below-deck ring was reconfigured to provide two hills and two flat areas, as distinct from the consistent up-and-down of the configuration for the Waltzer. Where the Waltzer had nine cars, each of which could take six punters, The Ark had 27 sets of three animals, each of which could carry two riders. So the Ark could carry more punters per ride, it was also quicker to load. Consequently when he was asked to or when the fair was likely to be very busy, such as on a Bank Holiday, the Walzter was packed away and the Ark was fitted to the chassis.

  The equipment that made up the Ark; the scenery and all the individual animals were stored, when not in use, in the back of an aged Luton truck. This had a box body with a section that jutted forwards over the cab. This over-cab part was about five feet long front to back, and just over six feet in width. The head-room was all of about three foot six. The truck was used to carry the Ark ride equipment and no piece of this conversion kit would actually fit into the over-cab area, so it was under used. This was to become my bunk for the foreseeable future.

  There was only one way to access this palatial bedroom and that was through the tail-gate door and over the stored equipment. Whilst this was a bit of a pain at the end of a long day, it was even more of a pain in the wee small hours when I awoke with a desperate need for a pee. I had to clamber, in pitch darkness across some twenty feet of sharp, protuberant, unyielding and unstable equipment in order to then drag open the tailgate and relieve myself out into the darkness. On completion, I had to haul the tailgate shut and clamber all the way back. This was made doubly awful by the lack of heating, or insulation in the back of the truck; opening the tailgate released any nice warm fug I may have managed to generate, so when I returned to my bed the temperature was often several degrees colder than it had been when I had awoken a few moments before. I have just referred to my sleeping area as a ‘bed’, do not be fooled into thinking that this was any sort of camp bed or even caravan type bunk. It wasn’t even as luxurious as a nautical hammock. The best I had been able to secure was a flat panel of wooden boards, laid over the corrugated metal of the cab of the truck. On top of this was a ‘mattress’ consisting of a spare bit of the felt that was used aft to stop the scenery and the animals from bashing or rubbing together as the truck drove along. Folded into four this was, in total, about an inch and a half thick. It was grey and scratchy and, I presume, made from cotton or woollen waste, though having been in use for some years it was also musty and smelly and filled with flakes of paint and splinters.

  It was not four-star comfort but it was at least slightly less uncomfortable than sleeping on bare boards, or just a rolled up tarpaulin. It also provided a modicum of insulation from the thin sheet of metal below. Over me, I used to throw one or two rank army-surplus blankets and I usually slept fully clothed except for boots. Nowadays, you only see conditions like this in TV news programmes about gang-masters working illegal immigrants in near slavery conditions!

  There was one distinct and immediate advantage of this arrangement, which was that it was free from cost. It also brought a couple of other facets that could be described, if you were in the right frame of mind, as advantages. Firstly, it prevented me from getting soft and too used to luxury. Secondly, it was so cramped and restrictive that, even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t amass much by way of material possessions. I was not aware that either of these were advantages at the time, but, later in that, my first year on the tober, it became clear that this toughness and lack of material encumbrances was in fact a favourable characteristic for me to have.

  Chapter 8

  The Big Bang

  As you have seen, life in a travelling funfair was not easy and was frequently a bit on the dangerous side. This latter characteristic lent a certain amount of attraction to a young lad who had not grown up on the tober. But one night that summer, in Cambridgeshire, I witnessed an event which showed the potential dangers not only to the Showman’s community but also to the public.

  All the rides stalls and machines required electricity in some form and on some scale. Side-stuff generally only had strings of lights, but the big machines, the Dodgems, the Waltzer and so on drank electricity with their hundreds of light bulbs and their voracious motors driving several thousand pounds of cars rounds and round.

  This power was provided by generators that the Showmen owned and towed around with them. Again, there was a wide variety of ‘genny’, mounted in a wide variety of rolling stock, but the most common format was one or two, five or six cylinder Gardner diesel engines, each with its own radiator and dynamo, mounted on the back of a large truck. This beast was monstrously heavy, and this was deliberate; the weight in the back acted as ballast allowing the heavy engine ‘tractor’ unit, to pull enormous weights on the move. Due to the weight and the noise they created (not to mention the stink of diesel fumes) the generators were always sited outside the actual funfair area and as far as possible from the living wagons.

  The generators themselves provided 110v DC current and once fired up the exact voltage could be tweaked slightly by means of adjusting the governor; this in turn controlled the revs of the engine. When you were setting the engine to run, there were gauges to help but when the fair was in full swing, the fairground lights provided your indication that all was well. Or not. If the lights on the ride became brighter, the voltage was too high. If they dimmed, the voltage was falling. It was rather like having 1500 warning-lights on the funfair dashboard. Generally, once the gennies were running they required no further attention that night, as their fuel tanks were usually large enough to last for the duration of a single event.

  One Friday night at about 9.30 the sky was almost completely dark. We had been running for a couple of hours and had a good crowd, some of whom had came back, having had a great time on the evening before. The weather was good and bon homie was the order of the evening. As Mr Rose slowed the Waltzer at the end of the ride there was a slow, but perceptible, brightening of the lights. Few of the punters noticed anything but pretty much all the gaff people spotted it instantly. The brightness settled for a moment, but as the ride reached its end and the machine finally stopped, the lights brightened slightly again. This time Mr Rose gave Fred the Brakes a nod and he set off to go and check on the generator. He had barely cleared the ring of side stuff that formed the perimeter of the fair when the lights started to really blaze. It was instantly clear that there was something seriously wrong and Don, Charlie and I sprinted after to Fred to help. Mr Rose and Mr Charles, stayed put; they were guarding the money-bins and it would take more than a bright light to get them to abandon the whole family’s livelihood.

  We reached the generators quite quickly and found Fred had jumped up onto the bed of the truck and was frantically trying to seal the air intake of the diesel engine with his flat hat. The engine was racing. Clearly the governor had failed and the engine was simply getting faste
r and faster. If this was a movie there would have been a large rev-counter dial with the top section marked “Danger” and painted a warning red colour, the needle would have been climbing through this section towards to the absolute zenith and at this stage someone would have shouted,

  ‘She’s gonna to blow!’ and we’d have all run for cover.

  This wasn’t the movies so there was no big dial. I don’t know if anyone shouted that she was ‘gonna blow’; you couldn’t have heard yourself think over the tortured scream of an eight litre engine running at a speed that it was never designed to run at.

  I do know that we all ran for cover....except Fred!

  Fred dropped down from the truck and as he hit the floor he crumpled up; ankles, knees, hips, spine, neck....he hit the ground about five foot ten inches tall and simply got smaller and smaller, until he was almost in the foetal position.

  And at that point the first of the big ends in the engine gave way. The whole engine just exploded!

  There was no fire, just an enormously loud bang and the air was filled with flying chunks of metal.

  After a few seconds a comparative silence fell. It also became almost completely dark. The crowd didn’t start screaming. There was no panic.

  Then I heard Mr Rose’s voice booming out over the fairground, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that due to a slight technical problem, the funfair will now have to close for the evening. But please be assured that we will be open and ready to provide you with fun and entertainment tomorrow evening as planned. May I wish you all a goodnight and God bless.’

  After all the punters had gone we closed up early and retired to the pub for a nerve steadying drink. No one had been hurt; Fred informed us, over his third pint, that he had been a paratrooper during the war and that he had simply executed a text-book ‘parachute landing fall’ as he hit the ground. After he had hit the ground he had deliberately rolled under the chassis of the truck, so that the shrapnel formed by the shattered engine had chased us, since the bed of the truck was reinforced to bear the weight of the generators. He did seem to think that he needed to shout this information, though whether he was hoping to elicit sympathy and free beer, or whether he was simply deafened by the explosion. I never quite got round to asking him.

  The following day we cleared up the mess and removed the last remnants of the exploded Gardner from the truck. That evening we used Mr Charles’s generator to run the Waltzer as well and within a few days Mr Rose had found a replacement set and life returned to normal. The only long term ‘scar’ from the incident was an identifiable shaft of con-rod, embedded a couple of inches into one of the main oak ribs of Mr Rose’s traditional showman’s caravan.

  Mr Rose left it there, it would do more damage try to remove it and by leaving it sticking out, he always had a hook to hang his coat on if he needed one.

  In fact, he needed a hook to hang his coat on just the following week.

  Chapter 9

  The Collapse of the Bank of Mr Hammerton Rose

  We were moving to another fairground and Mr Rose was driving the Diamond T, following behind the Luton which was towing Mr Rose’s caravan. The Luton was being driven by a diminutive middle aged Irish gaff lad who went by the name of Harry. Don was in the cab as Harry’s ‘mate’. As we passed through a small village we had to cross a rather steep humpback bridge. Just as the Luton cleared the bridge, one of the rear tyres on the caravan burst with a load pop. The caravan’s back-end slumped down, just as the midsection, between the two axles, was over the highest part of the bridge arch. The belly of the caravan came down onto the tarmac with a wood splintering crash. You will recall that in this caravan travelled the Princess, Mr Rose’s guard dog, and the reason she was in the caravan was that the ‘bank of Mr Hammerton Rose’ was slung beneath the caravan in the wooden belly box. This wooden belly box contained several hundred pounds in coin and a couple of thousand in notes. This same wooden belly box was the source of the splintering crash.

  Harry, some thirty feet ahead of the caravan’s shattered belly and flat tyre was oblivious to the impending disaster he was towing and simply kept driving. He claimed later that he presumed that the extra drag was simply the effect of hauling a load over a hump back bridge with an engine and gearbox that had clearly seen better days.

  Mr Rose, Fred the Brakes and I, however, had a grandstand view as the broken box was dragged over the remainder of the hump and a large white calico sack, pregnant with coin, dropped down to drag on the rough surface of the road. Snagged on the box, the lower portions of the bag ware rapidly being abraded by the surface of the road. Within a matter of seconds, bright silver florins and half-crowns, dull pennies and ha’pennies were spewing from the bag and rolling and bouncing all over the road in the wake of the smoky Luton.

  Mr Rose stamped on the brake pedal of the Diamond T almost at the same time as he hit the horn, hard.

  “Brake! Brake! Brake!” he yelled at Fred as he opened the driver’s door and leapt down from the cab, leaving the enormous truck teetering on the upper most part of the offending bridge.

  I know that they say, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and I swear that I didn’t actually bite it. But I have to say that I couldn’t suppress a smile at the sight of Mr Rose, bent double along the road, trying to scoop up coins whilst, at the same time, trying to catch up with Harry and yelling in an uncharacteristically undignified manner. I caught Fred’s eye and, for a very short moment, we both laughed like hyenas before quickly plastering on suitably sober faces and leaping to the ground to help the Guv’nor to retrieve his rightful fortune.

  Being the youngest of we three, I was the faster runner and within a couple of hundred yards I’d managed to catch up with Harry and got him to stop. Between Harry, Mr Rose, Fred, Don and I we managed in the course of the next forty-five minutes to retrieve a considerable sum of money in change. It was hot work, in the August sun, working as fast as possible, constantly having to bend double. Mr Rose took off his suit-coat and hung it carefully on the con-rod, protruding from the outer wall of the caravan.

  Luckily, none of the envelopes of notes had fallen out of the box, so the total value of money that was at risk, whilst bulky and made up of several hundred coins was comparatively low.

  Many of the locals had turned out to see the fair pass through the village and it was a demonstration of the flatties perception that all travelling people were a bit ‘dangerous’, that none of them attempted to collect up any of the spilt money. The assistance they offered was in the form of pointing out hidden coins but none actually picked any up.

  The road was effectively blocked for the best part of an hour whilst the money was collected. Once we reached the point where we could find no more, Mr Rose picked up his suit coat from his new coat hook and retired to his dining table to count the finds and reconcile his losses. The rest of us jacked up the caravan and got the wheel off. Then Don and I took it to the local garage for a repair. Harry and Fred removed the shattered remains of the belly box so that when we set up at our next venue they’d be able to get straight on with fitting a new one. We returned and fitted the newly repaired and inflated tyre, and had just jacked the ‘van back down, when Mr Rose came out with a sombre expression on his face. He quietly gave Harry a mild rebuke for his part in the incident but then changed expression to a large grin as he announced that, in all, he was only four shillings and sixpence adrift and that he would put this down to experience. Massive sighs of relief were breathed all round and we mounted up and got back on the road. The one and a half hour delay was no major problem for the move and soon we were settling in for a bank holiday weekend of fun and games.

  Chapter 10

  The Big Bang (Part II)

  The reputation of the people of the travelling funfair may have been a bit low amongst many flatties, but there were some members of the flattie community whose morals were not of the high
est.

  We set up for the Bank Holiday weekend and on the Wednesday evening, when the day’s work was done, I was sitting outside the pub with Don and Charlie. A young lady appeared from the direction of the railway station. She was carrying an overnight bag and she was smartly dressed, in an understated way. She walked straight up to Charlie, and without saying a word, she took hold of his head between her hands and gave him a very passionate looking and long kiss, of the type that you seldom saw in public in those days.

  ‘’ello, darlin’, said Charlie, when he got his breathe back, ‘Back to break your last year’s record are you?’

  ‘You bet, Charlie Boy!’ she said with a flounce, ‘Just going to freshen up’, and with that she disappeared into the pub and thence the ladies loo.

  Charlie saw that I was a bit perplexed, so he launched into an explanation of who she was, what she was and what she was here for.

  There was a ‘class’ of girl who liked sex. I’m not simply talking about girls who were simply more liberated than my own mother, but girls who really, really liked sex. These girls had realized, long before the advent of AIDS, safe sex, speed dating or ‘fuck-buddies’, that the travelling funfair was a potentially good place to pick up blokes for anonymous, casual sex.

  These girls would travel from their own immediate hometown and stay with the funfair for a couple of days getting as much on-their-back time as they possibly could. The gaff lads had a name for them; “skipper-queens” and I had just met one of the most ‘professional’. The aim was to have as many men as possible in a night; it had become almost a challenge for these girls, many of whom knew each other.