a fairground life(season pack up)

Sunday
The rain fell all morning. When we opened up at noon it got heavier, I had a hunch it would be an early finish so I phoned the "crew" to come for 4pm. It did ease for a couple of hours, but at 4:15pm it was bouncing off the ground and we called it a day. "r" and "s" got into the skydiver while "w" and I started the show. Then "w" and I went onto the Dropzone. Before we had this finished "r" and "s" had completed the skydiver and came over to help us. At that I left them and started on the miami. Everything went well (except we were soaked through), all the tower bolts on the DZ and Miami weight bolts came off easily. I had greased the bolts to help during the build up and it had paid off. All the vehicles started no problem too. At 9pm we were all done. I set sail for the shed with the first load. Expecting to get it in and return for another. Not the case. When I arrived at the gates the paddle lock had been changed, so I parked at a nearby showman's yard and returned this morning to put the lorry in. The old lock had been damaged during the period between me getting the key and turning up last night. Then I did another three trips to the shed. I have other showmen in with me as well. It took most of the day to get the rides in. Its a tight fit as the vehicles have to be reversed around a corner, up a narrow path and jack knifed into the shed. By the third load we had it sussed out though.
While organising things for the shed "r" and I got talking about safety equipment. One thing that popped up in the conversation was the effectiveness of steel toe cap boots. I remember about 1975 or so my father had a coupling bar dropped on his foot. He was wearing steely's but they crushed onto his toes. He was hurt but not severely, so I suppose they did help.
"r" wondered what would happen if a lorry ran over your foot? So we did a small test. Not finding anyone stupi.. I mean brave enough to put their foot in, we improvised and used a carrot in place. Watch the video to see the result. We ran two axles of the skydiver over it. The ride weighs about 28 tons. So that would be about 4 ton over the boot. No matter the result--We fully recommend steel toe cap boots. (They are also good for a laugh by welding your mates foot to something)