Over the weekend we opened outside of Manchester Uniteds Football stadum at Old Trafford. Originally we were supposed to be right outside the front of the stadium, butat the last minute we were moved to an out of the way car park. This resulted in probably the poorest day open we have ever had. Whilst standing around discussing our woes, one of the other operators supporting the event exclaimed that it didn't matter if we didn't take anything, "Its an honour to be open here". @*$%£^"%£ing Manchester United fanatics, I would prefer less honour and more money!
For the last four or five years, a young lad called Denis has occasionally given me a hand on one of our attractions. Now Denis isn't the sharpest tool in the box, but over time he has become proficient in looking after our shooting gallery. Most of the time Denis works as a part time handyman or painter and decorator, he probably helped me less than a dozen days a year.
I haven't heard from Denis in about six months, so when I happened upon his cousin I enquired about his whereabouts. "Bristol Nick", came the blunt reply. Denis it seems is on remand awaiting trial for strangling his girlfriend! Now its an old cliche, but I didn't think Denis was capable of something like this, if he is guilty he should be put up against a wall and shot, but that will be determined by a jury of his peers. Reading the news reports on the internet, I happened upon one that stated Denis was an ex Fairground worker. WHY??????, he spent most of his time either unemployed or as an odd job man, so why isn't he described as an ex odd job man, or an ex painter and decorator?
A clue to one of the possible reasons behind this reared its head a few week later. A police inspector in Ripon, (a city where showmen including myself have excellent relations), penned an article reproduced in a number of local newspapers, where he slammed the fairground industry for "keeping alive the tradition of attracting yobs", and using up police resources. He went on to state that fairgrounds should be closed down and people allowed to go to Alton Towers and Florida!!! I wonder how much the Florida tourist board are paying him, and does he declare this second income. As a point of fact, the large fairs in the city, run by Stewart Robinson, have private security firms employed to keep order, and there is no evidence of police resources having to be used to run the event.
Perhaps if this inspector spent more of his time catching criminals, instead of trying to persecute innocent businesses, the street of Ripon would be a safer place to walk. Out of interest I wonder if the other 50 weeks of the year when there are no fairs in Ripon, does all of the teenage yobs disappear?
A few posts back I berated Renny for trying to impersonate Inspector Clouseu with his misadventures at the Don Valley Stadium. This time it is my turn. Whilst attending the Corus Family Funday at Redcar, I realised that one of our vehicles was short on fuel, so I borrowed Arthurs Transit van to nip to Morrisons garage for a drum of diesel. As I pulled upto the pump and applied the footbrake it happened something like this;
A load bang was followed by an almighty hissing and my entire world become white, For a split second my mind flashed to all of those reports of near death experiences where people saw a white light as they "died". Before I had time to panic I started to choke and couldn't breath so I opened the drivers door and fell out of the van. As I lay there panting an almighty cloud of white powder erupted form the drivers door opening and proceeded to cover everything, Morrisons shop, all of the cars in the garage the people filling theirs up and everything else in sight. Then I realised what had happened. Arthur had a big dry powder fire extinguisher in the back, I know because I moved it when I placed the empty diesel drum in the back. As I braked this had fallen over and went off!
As the extinguisher fizzled out, I retrieved my drum from the back, filled it and went inside to pay for the fuel. The entire shop erupted in laughter at my appearance, (jet white from head to toe) and my explanation as to what had happened. Climbing into the van I surveyed a scene of devastation, everything from floor to ceiling was covered in a thick layer of powder, I couldn't see out of the windscreen and the dashboard was totally obscured. I pulled up to ring Arthur,and tried to explain between bouts of laughter as to what I had done. Arthurs wife Lisa passed the garage on the way home and reported that the floor had a giant white splat covering it with a transit van sized clear patch in the middle.
When we picked the helter skelter up just before easter, the plan was to refurbish it before using it, but as previous posts show this went out of the window almost immediately. We have been working on the attraction whenever time has permitted and it is now beginning to take shape. The next job is to finish the paybox and then have this and the front totally repainted and a roof added to provide some protection from the elements.
