A fairground life(cyprus adventure ch16)

Nicosia march 1999
I had been running back and forward to Strovolos twice daily while making the basketball game. The hire car couldn’t take it and eventually the engine seized up. Luckily my father in law had decided a few days earlier that the car wasn’t safe enough for us to do the commuting to the fair in anyway and had hired a Pajero Jeep from Hertz. He said it was for his grand daughters safety. So we used that until George got me another car. I just did what all Cypriots did and left the seized one on the side of the road where it had stopped, George sent someone out to recover it. We had gotten so used to petrol cars that one day my father in law went to fuel the jeep and put petrol in that too. After about 1 mile it stopped then he remembered it was diesel. He found a small garage and had to get the tank drained. He got well ridiculed for that. And it cost him the repair fee.
For the next couple of weeks we had good business at this Strovolos and a couple of nights had been busy like the first night. One time the crowds were so deep at the pop it ons game that my father in law sat on the seat and refused to serve anyone because they were getting too rowdy. We decided to put my mother in law in to watch the game instead. That turned out worse! She clipped a cheeky lad under the chin and he fell back on his rear. Luckily all his pals laughed at him, he was so embarrassed that he got up and left. She got no more cheek after that! The security on the fair were not really that good. “a” on the twist lost a music speaker one night. The security told him he only had three to start with! What was even funnier was you could see the dust print from the missing speaker on the floor. Somehow later the next day it was returned. Mr”a” was getting worried about the refugees stealing money from his tokens boxes. He placed a spotlight on top of each box, wired to a switch so the cashier could flash the light for attention if there was a problem. Mr”a” informed the security of the new procedure. He decided to test it. Watch this he said, when I flash this light they will all come running. He flashed the light for over a minute. We could see the security, but not one came. Mr”a” stormed off in a fit, we all fell about laughing.
I had finished the manufacturing of the basketball game. All I had to do was get paid. The next couple of days were spent making the regulation hoops a bit smaller, so that the Irishman could put bigger prizes on. He was a character and for some reason the local youths gave him a hard time. They would go on the trampolines and jump from bed to bed and not come off when their time was up. The Irishman would go on and chase them to try and get them off, then , when he was exhausted he would go and get the security. One day when he arrived to open, the kids had undone all the springs. The first customer fell through the canvas. Funny now, but not at the time. So much for the 24hr security. “L”s wife also had problems at the dart game. After a week of torture from the youths she stabbed one in the hand with the darts while he was trying to steal the prizes from the game stall! Eventually “L” put chicken wire around the prizes to protect them. This made the stall look like Stalag 13, but it stopped the thieving. When it came to the end of the three weeks, mr”a” added on another week onto Strovolos. We did get some money but the commuting was becoming too much (over 4000 miles in a month), good job the fuel in Cyprus was so cheap. At this time the war in Yeugoslavia was at its height. There was a strong objection here to the Allies bombings and the protestors were out on the streets in force. For the first time I felt threatened, we removed all the European & American flags around the fair and from then on we only flew the Greek & Cypriot flags. This was originally to be the end of our tour, but mr”a” pulled a new venue out of the hat.
more tomorrow.....