The First Miracle I ever Encountered

My very first memory of my childhood is of waking up on a bright April morning with the sun glinting through the doorway and my Father just entering the vardo (Caravan) with a mug of tea for Mother who was still in bed. “Come on las stir yer stumps and shake yer feathers” he said, “had yer forgotten we’re shifting today?” (You'll have gathered by this time he was a real Yorkshireman) It turned out to be the first day of the season and we were going to move from Leeds where we had spent the winter to the first fair of the season for us which was at Ripley in Derbyshire and as we only had horse drawn transport in those days it would probably take us about 3 to 4 days to get there. From what I learnt later it had been a particularly bad winter both weather wise and financially too, I remember Mam and Dad speaking about it a few years later to some friends, about how that winter we had lived on potato soup for about six weeks, though do I suspect the odd rabbit or stray chicken would have been involved somewhere along the line knowing my Dad.

As a child I never really knew why, but we didn’t travel with Granny and Granddad all the time, we just met up with them at certain fairs from time to time, until one time at Huddersfield Easter fair I was going round town during the day with Mam, she was shopping for that days food, yes, strange isn't it now to think the food shopping was done on a daily basis, but it was necessary because there were no refrigerators then, even the milk didn’t last one day, in fact in the winter we used to collect milk twice, sometimes three times a day from the farm. Sorry, went a bit off track, where was I?, Oh yes, shopping in Huddersfield town centre with my mother when all of a sudden we came across a crowd of people on the pavement all looking down at something. Mother’s first thought was someone had taken ill, but as we got nearer she said “Nothing to worry about it’s only your Granddad”. Well I was more curious than ever, what on earth is he doing down on the floor so I pushed my way through the crowd to find him sitting cross-legged on a small carpet surrounded by bits of silverware, horse brasses and the like and he was telling the people that this ‘Miracle Glow’ at only 1 shilling (5p) a bottle would change any ordinary brass item into dazzling silver as he rubbed an old horse brass with a rag dipped in his ‘Miracle Glow’ sure enough it turned into a beautiful gleaming Silver one before your very eyes. I was fascinated; this was real magic not like the tricks they did in the side shows on the fair where everything happened either beneath a large black cloth or out of sight in a brightly painted box, this worked instantly.

At last I had discovered the secret why we did not always see Granny & Pet (that was my nickname for him) at the fairs we attended. There are many stories of the things Pet got up to during his life but they will have to wait for another time. However, some years later I did ask him what was actually in that little bottle of ‘Miracle Glow’ but no answer was forthcoming, however, all these years later I look back in horror, I don’t know about ‘Miracle Glow’ the only Miracle was that he didn’t kill himself and half the population of Huddersfield too because the coating on the horse brasses, etc. was not silver at all, but MERCURY in fact salts of mercury which are soluble in water and the most deadly form of the chemical. some years later he proudly informed me that a half crown jar of mercury made up 50 of his 1 shilling bottles. I will, when time permits, relay some of his other questionable exploits he got up to over his long and colourful life.

Until next time ...........................​