a fairground life(cyprus adventure ch19b)

Paphos 1999 cont
Eventually “d” found a small engineers to make him a new nylon wheel for the ride, but it would take another day. This delayed his opening again and for that week I was very busy everyday. Eventually “d” went back to Limassol to try and find wheels for the ride from a scrap yard. Luckily they were the same type as old hospital trolleys. He ended up in a scrap yard belonging to an old Cypriot called ‘crazy Michael’. There he found spare wheels to repair his ride.
My father in law and I also went to this scrap yard to source five core cable for the ride. I was going to need some now for when I returned home since I had changed the ride from 110v dc. I went to the yard office in Limassol. As I walked in there were two of the most stunningly beautiful women I had ever seen. They had dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin. They both were made up like models and had figures to suit. Both were in their thirties I would guess. I asked for crazy Michael, by the look on their faces I quickly realised that they did not care for the ‘crazy’ part of his title. It was revealed to me later by George , that Michael was in his eighties and attending hospital in London for a heart condition. Those two beautiful women were his daughters and run the business for him. Apparently, Michael made his fortune while working for the British army in the 50’s. He was in charge of the fuel depot. In those days they were allowed up to 20% loss a day on the fuel through evaporation. You don’t have to be a master mind to work out what that led to! George said that the “English were very stupid” no doubt George associated with Michael during their younger days. The daughters summoned a Cypriot worker to take me and my father in law to the main yard a short car trip away. When we got there, behind the locked gate it was a treasure trove of ex-army surplus and assorted ‘good junk’. There was a mountain of “jerry” cans, engines, alternators, aircraft parts, armoured cars etc etc. After a short search we found what we were looking for. I pulled out the cable into a straight line to inspect it. The Cypriot pulled out a measuring tape. He gave one end to my father in law to hold. As we walk to the other end , my father in law waited and then followed us a bit to make the measurement shorter (we still laugh about it). With the measurement taken, it was time to haggle the price. I could speak no Cypriot and he could speak no English and we eventually reached an agreement by scratching figures into the ground with a stick! (we still laugh about that too). He wanted £160 CY for the cable. It was bought for £120 CY. This was £80 to Michael, £40 for the Cypriot and £40 to me that I saved from original price, plus thirty feet that was not measured. That cable still works fine today.
The dodgem had developed a problem, the transformer had gotten damaged during erecting the ride and it finally packed in. Lucky for “c” my transformer was sitting idle on the ride since I had changed to 3 phase in Limassol. We ran a main from “c”s generator to the centre of my ride and into the transformer. Then we ran the return feed back again to the dodgem ride. It was over 200 ft of main in all, but it worked fine until “c” got his repaired.