a fairground life(cyprus adventure ch15)

Nicosia march 1999
As business wasn’t as good as many had wanted, a couple of the Dutch games were leaving to return to Europe for the summer and do their fairs there. This was going to leave a couple of holes in the fair, so the Irishman (in partnership) with Hank asked me to build a basketball game. Hank had been minding the lucky numbers game (make 21 with lucky dip numbers) this had been taking fortunes compared to the rest of us. Since the games returning to Holland would need their transport this left Hank and the Irishman with no way to transport the trampolines to Strovolos in Nicosia. They went around looking for a private lorry driver to do it for them. The day we left for Nicosia I was driving along the motorway and passed a TIPPER lorry full of TRAMPOLINES!!!. It looked like a load of scrap! When it arrived at the fair site they unloaded it- no sorry, they didn’t unload it- you guessed it THEY TIPPED IT OUT like you would a load of sand! I though to myself it must be scrap now. I had visions of all the irons being bent and twisted.
We were next to a crossroads in an industrial area outside Nicosia. The place was called Strovolos and we were told it was full of refugees from Famagusta and Russia.
There was a small house behind the fairground and a crop field across the road. Mr”a” decided to let Eric build up the typhoon first as it took him two full days to do so. We would get set tomorrow. That evening the Cypriot who lived in the house returned home to see the fair positioned behind his garden. That was that-he complained to the local mayor to have us moved away. Mr”a” and George tried to reach an agreement with him, but to no avail. It seems the world is the same all over- “everybody loves the funfair, but not next to my house!” Now we had nowhere to go. For the next three days mr”a” and George looked for an alternative site. They ended up with the crop field across the road from the original site as a last resort. To get it mr”a” had bought the crop, paid the farmer to clear the field of it and then had to buy the roots because our heavy vehicles would damage them. The field looked very soft and soily. The dust was unbelievable. The lorries were sinking into the soft soil and on top of that we were warned to watch out for poisonous snakes! Poor Eric had to pull the typhoon down again and move it across the road, the Irishman and Hank had to carry the trampolines one piece at a time across the busy road into the field. At nights we were leaving the fair unattended, so the security were put on 24hrs now to stop any thieving. Since it was 56miles everyday to commute, the first night open my mother in law stayed in the room with our daughter“w” at Limassol. That night we opened and at 8pm the fair was mobbed and it turnred out that we were short staffed.
We were finally earning good money. Just before 10pm mr”a” came around and said we would have to close as the crowds were fighting at the gate of the fair! Apparently there had been a football game on (Famagusta v Nicosia, this is were the crowds had came from) and the rival fans were fighting among themselves. We went to the gate to see the situation. There were several hundred people they’re watching around fifty, fighting each other. Just at that a police car pulled up with its sirens blowing. A lone policeman got out the car. We all thought to ourselves- if he tries to stop this he’ll get killed. At that he pulled out his gun and fired two shots in the air. The crowd immediately dispersed and all our customers. The policeman got back in his car and drove away. The whole fair was closed within five minutes.