Ross Bernard - The Show Must Go On: a young mans adventures with a travelling show in 1950s Britain

Title Page

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

A young mans adventures with a travelling show in 1950s Britain

Bernard Ross & Rus Slater

Publisher Information

The Show Must Go On

Published in 2015 by Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The rights of Bernard Ross & Rus Slater to be identified as the Authors of this Work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright 2015 Bernard Ross & Rus Slater

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Dramatis Personae

Bernard Ross, Bernie : - Our Hero

Mr Hammerton Rose : - Proud owner of the Waltzer

Don: - Mr Hammerton Roses nephew and right- hand man

Old Mrs Rose : - enerable Matriarch

Mr Charles Rose : - Proud owner of the Dodgems and elder brother of Mr Hammerton

Mrs Anne Rose : - Mr Charles Roses Wife

Charlie : - Mr Charles son-and-heir

Princess : - A dog of dubious ancestry and large teeth

Fred The Brakes : - A funfair chap with a self explanatory monika

Helen : - A young lady of dubious morals and prodigious appetites

Ernie : - A peanut and coal vendor with a low standard of public Health and Safety

Bruno : - A relative of Princess with similar characteristics

Jock : - A Scotsman of great heart and impenetrable accent

Davey : - A gaff lad with a strong sense of diplomacy

Mr Cartwright : - A civil servant with a strong sense of hatred for our hero

Mike, Dave and Joe : - Young men with a strong sense of self preservation but a very low sense of duty

Mal Bede : - A Showman with a punch

Madame Renee : - A fortune teller who couldnt foresee a metal breakdown

Brady : - A rare breed; an uneducated but intelligent professional fighter

George : - The Harrow Hammer: A wrestler heading for a fall and a submission

Davy the Dustman : - A stand-up wrestler

Irish Mick : - A hard man (to get along with)

Althea : - A barmaid who tempted me

Authors Note

This book has been written in the 20teens; some 45 years after the events happened. The narrative is the result of discussions and notes made by Bernard in the past year and then created as a story by Rus. Consequently, though the events described are all real, the order, location and exact participants may have suffered some degradation of memory or some poetic licence. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the not-so-innocent.

Chapter 1

An End

In her hands was a bouquet of wildflowers gathered from the surrounding meadows.

Her clothes were her Sunday best, and she wore every piece of her jewellery; necklaces, bracelets and rings. The large, gold hoop earrings, that she had worn every day since she was seven years old were in her ears. She even had her late husbands miniature Great War medals pinned to the breast of her black woollen coat, just below the fur-trimmed collar.

She was cold. Stone cold. Stone cold dead.

She had been lovingly laid on her narrow bed, dressed in her finery, surrounded by all her possessions.

Outside, in the rain, in a circle around her, stood her family. Some forty people, ranging in age from babes-in-arms to people in their sixties. To two of them she was Mum, to others, Grandma, Auntie or Old Mrs Rose. The old was not a term of disrespect, but a formal title rather like the queen mother. To some she was loved, to all she was respected, to a couple she had been feared. They stood in the drizzle, stiffly and in silence as a mark of respect.

As the first tiny tongue of flame began to grow and multiply along the doorstep of her van, there was a palpable relaxation in the assembled circle of people. This may not be the end, but it was the beginning of the end.

An hour later, the caravan roared. The heat from it had caused the only movement in the people; they had shuffled back a few feet to escape the worst of the heat that had originally been welcome in the chill early morning mist. The respectful silence that had pervaded the meadow was now shattered by the crackling of old timbers, the sizzling and popping of blistering paint and the bursting of jars and cans in her store cupboards. The people remained silent.

This was the passing of the matriarch. Though her husband had died many years before, passing the reins of the Show to her sons, she had been there for as long as anyone could remember; indeed she had lived ninety-six years with the Show, and for the past seven had never left her van. Each evening her elder son, Charles, had knocked respectfully and taken a cup of tea and a glass of port with his Mum. His wife, Anne, had cooked and delivered Mrs Roses meals and had cleaned the van each day. It had fallen to one of the young lads to empty her chamber pot twice daily.

The pot-bellied stove in the van had not been cold for that past seven years. Now it glowed red in the blazing inferno.

Still the people stood in respectful silence.

With a loud bang, one of the blooms burst explosively. As that corner of the van dropped, the shock load broke one of the main structural foundation beams. As the floor of the van buckled the walls caved inwards, pulled by the remaining weight of the cupboards and pictures inside. The barrel roof broke in two and collapsed, and the whole caravan disappeared in a cloud of brilliant orange sparks and flying embers. The assembled people flinched and were grateful that they had moved back earlier. Still the people stood in respectful silence.

As the cloud of embers settled, the roaring died down. Starved of so much air, the fire took on a less aggressive tone, flames danced rather than leaping.

Still the people stood in respectful silence.

Slowly the flames became smaller. The last standing timbers collapsed or slowly keeled over into the bright mass of smouldering, red embers.

Still the people stood in silence, though an observant and alert watcher would have seen the occasional shuffle of feet as people tried to keep warm and aching joints moving in the cold, damp, afternoon drizzle.

Bright red embers gave way to white ash edges and the heat slowly dissipated. Cold crept in as the height of the fire fell, closer and closer to the ground.

Still they stood in silence, as if frozen and uncomfortable.

At last Charles turned and walked slowly away. His wife, Anne, followed and the people took this as their cue to disperse, still silent, back to their own vans.

Tonight there would be no show; there would be no movement to another field. There would be much drinking and much storytelling about the old days. The days when Showmens vans didnt have blooms, but iron rimmed wooden wheels. The days before Charless Dad had gone off to the War.

Tomorrow there would be some bloody sore heads! And mine would undoubtedly be one of them.

Chapter 2

What Am I Doing Here?

By force of two years of habit, I tended to wake early in those days and, so it was that morning that I awoke shortly before dawn.

My head was throbbing. My eyes were gritty and sore. My mouth felt and tasted like the bottom of the proverbial budgies cage. I lay in the darkness waiting for the various pains to subside and watching the weak grey edge of the dawns light creep across the inside of the roof of the 15 ton AEC Mammoth Major 8 truck that was now my home.

There is nothing like a death to make a man ponder the meaning of his own life, even a man as young as I was; for I was only 17 years old.