Tales From My Childhood

 The summer of 1951 was not a very good one if I remember correctly, quite a wet one for for travelling fairs. We were working the fair at Daisy Nook in Lancashire, Mother with her fortune telling booth and Dad with a striker (the thing where you try to ring the bell at the top using a large wooden mallet.). It had been raining on and off for a few days but this particular day it was pouring down and there were very few people around in the early evening. As it was quiet and Dad’s striker was in the open he decided to take a walk round and see how the other showmen were doing.

They all had a similar tale “Hardly took the rent today”, on his way back he called round to see old Arthur who owned the Gallopers (You probably know them as the Hobby Horses, you know where the horses go up and down and a fairground organ pumping out loud music see photo above). Well unlike other rides such as the Noah’s Ark or the Waltzer the Gallopers had nothing between the ground and the spinning ride and as Dad approached he slipped in the mud and went right underneath the machine.

The outcome was his legs and hip were so badly damaged he ended up in a wheelchair. Now it doesn't take a genius to realise wheelchairs, muddy fairgrounds and caravans do not make very good partners, so the decision was taken to move into a bungalow and leave the fairs behind. I was eight at the time and it was decided perhaps better if I were to travel with Gran and Granddad, at least for the rest of the season to give Mam and Dad time to settle into their new routine of living like a Gorgio (non-Gypsy person) in a house.

It was just a few months later I suddenly realised even at that young age Dad was not settling into his new situation and, although just eight years old I knew it would only be a very short time before Dad gave up and lost the will to live. It was on my Birthday in December of that year Dad finally gave up the fight and passed peacefully away in his sleep. It was not the result of the terrible accident that caused his death, no, it was the fact he just could not accept the situation of living in a house. It is due to this I have always throughout my life encouraged people never ever give up.

Over the course of my long and varied life I must have been asked many thousands of times by both friends and family “Have you ever tried contacting your Father?”, “Has your Dad ever contacted you?”, similarly I am always being asked by both clients and would-be-clients “Are you a Medium”? “Do you get messages from those who have passed”? “What can you tell me about my late Mother”?, well I have to say my answer has and always will be the same “Sorry, I do not contact the dead”. This comes as a great surprise to most people who seem to automatically think because I tell fortunes and read palms I should be doing this.

I'm sorry to disappoint those people but what I can tell you it has nothing to do with whether or not I believe in life after death or if contact can or cannot be made. No, it is simply a private, personal thing for me and it is all connected to some happenings experienced by my Grandmother and my Father many years ago when I was just a small child.

I wish you all Kooshti Bok & Kooshti Sante (Good Luck & Good Health

Until next time ……………..

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