a fairground life (OZ)

Comparative DNA

The genetic difference between humans and chimps is less than 2%, and I would say that the difference between the Uk and Australian Showman is similar, but what a difference that 2% makes. I am not going to bore you with a list but sufficed to say that it would be shorter to name the differences than the similarities. I left on Monday afternoon and arrived in Melbourne at 4 am on Wednesday to find E waiting at the airport to pick me up. It was a short trip back to the yard and I found a couch made for me when I got there, upon which I threw my bags and myself and fell straight to sleep. The first day was exactly as you would imagine it, hot, dry and full of first time greetings. While E had been home he had taken over management of a ride for a close friend of the family and over the next two weeks I would find us traveling this ride around Melbourne to various school fetes and hire events. The ride itself was called the cliff hanger and was basically a skydiver with lay down cars and no floor. I would say that no floors on rides (or grass cutters as we call them) was one of the major differences between our two countries. In the UK if a ride had no floor or decking it is generally considered to be of a lower quality than its counter parts with floors, but on the other side of the world they prefer rides with no decking and even order rides to be specifically built without! For example I saw a Starflyer (this ride is what we would call a "big hitter", an expensive and relatively new ride) while I was over there, it had no decking and I was astonished to hear that it had been bought brand new from Europe and was requested without the decking. Generally the argument for no floors follows the train of though that it cost extra, they don't need it as they have more hard standing events and better weather, the rides take longer to put up (I don't agree with this as constructing a 70 foot diameter circle of fences around every ride takes a long time !) and it adds to the over all weight of the ride. Again weight and length were another surprise to me, for in Australia the law on what can be legally driven changes from state to state and the image of the "Road train" is just a fallacy. In general you can carry more weight in the Uk on each axle. Rides that can be on one truck over here have to be two trucks over there and you can be longer on the road in the Uk than you can be in Australia. An example of this is a great many rides in the Uk have the cash desk as a separate trailer hitched on the back of the ride on the road, in Australia this is illegal and as such they have to be towed separately by car. Although this is not usually a problem as there are no cash desks or pay boxes on most of the rides! The controls for the rides are on a stand that is placed at the entrance of the ride and the operator stands out in the open while controlling the ride (USA style), this takes a bit of getting used to as it was very strange to see a KMG bomber, starflyer, skydiver and big wheel all without cash desks and the controls sitting out in the open, along with amps and speakers sitting on the ground or somewhere on the chassis of the ride. In my humble opinion this is a bit silly, as all the sound systems and controls for the rides have to be lifted in and out of the cab of the lorry everyday and when the bad weather does come (and trust me it comes, I was opened there in the rain) there is no shelter and you find yourself running around throwing covers over amps and the ride controls, then all standing under a canopy trying in vain to stay dry. I say standing because the seat you were sitting on was now soaking! At one point I did happen to mention (while the rain was dripping off my nose) that this no cash desk idea was monumentally idiotic and the fact that they (the showmen standing beside me at the time) all said you don't need them was crap! As I can guarantee, if I was there with one of my rides, we would all be in my cash desk sitting on the couch with our feet around the heater! However not all rides are without cash desks, dodgems and the larger of the continental rides that were shipped in from Europe came with cash desks, like a friend of mine CH who has a KMG "Tango" ride which came with a very spacious cash desk. I met CH as he is a friend of E's and we opened beside him at one of the fetes we attended with the Cliff hanger. CH came to stay with us while he was in the area as he had not brought down his accommodation from the North because he was "gaff" hopping with the Tango around Melbourne and didn't have the drivers needed to shift everything at once. As E and I were pulling down the Cliff hanger CH asked me if I would shift the Tango car truck for him as he had to build back up that night in order to open early the next day and it would save him about 2 or 3 hours if he did not need to do a double trip. I said I would and before I knew it I was climbing into the cab of a big American double drive, long nose (forward transmission) with a tri axel trailer on the back! This was not the widest thing I had driven but it was certainly the longest and maybe even the heaviest. The journey was only across city hop of 30-40 miles and once I got out of the suburbs and onto the highway it was easy. The gear box was an old Fullers road ranger with the range changer bolted to the side of the gear stick. I remembered something like it from my grand-dads old Foden, it was a simple 4 low 4 high and had the same characteristics as the gear box in the lorry that pulls my Miami. As such, I had no trouble with it. The lorry itself had a 500 hp 14Lt engine and pulled like a train ! It was easily 25 years old but had been well maintained mechanically and with its big exhaust it gave off quite a rumble when you tickled the throttle! The trip took the best part of an hour and by the end I was well bedded into the saddle taking corners with ease following close behind CH who had the main tango truck. We pulled into the next Show at about 3am, it was a grass park and there had been a lot of problems the day before with rides getting bogged down (an un-usual problem over there). We had a look at where we wanted the ride and I took my trailer in first making sure to stick to the high ground and to make large sweeping turns so as not to create ruts with the front wheels and in turn bog the truck down. I got in and then CH followed my path with the Tango and only deviated onto fresh turf in order to position the ride for building up. After the tango was set CH gave me a lift back to E's and I hit the sack. Like I said at the beginning I spent two weeks with E and the cliff hanger, usually we would go into a show build up and then come back to the yard, I would follow him in the pick up while he drove the ride. The work over there was almost identical to the work over here, move, build up, open , pull down and then move again. It was only the heat and the differences that I had pointed out earlier that let you know you were in another country. There were however some noticeable social differences. There are more Showmen in the North of England than there are in all of Australia. As a result (as far as I can tell) they do not have the social events we do over here, likes of the Showmens dances at the big fairs such as Hull, Kirkcaldy or Newcastle. In the down season they don't see each other as much as we do as they all have their own yards through out the country and as such are not as communal as the Showmen in the UK who all tend to spend the winter in close proximity, like Scotland where I would say 85% of Showmen stay in Glasgow. Although I did hear a lot about what they called the "Northern run" this was a month or so in the summer where almost all of the Showmen would be together doing a run of events from Sydney up to Cairns and this was the big social event of the season. Unfortunately I could not come over for this as it coincides with my busy time of the year too. Over all I enjoyed my time with E and it was nice to see the industry going strong at the other side of the world and although I did not see any kangaroos or snakes I did have an encounter with a Wolf spider that I would not care to repeat! Me, E and some staff where taking down the Euro Slide and I was up the top in the dark with the staff folding down the "Super Slide" sign, halfway through folding it down I looked up to see a black mass the size of my fist slowly crawling along the sign towards my hand! The problem was I couldn't let go until the sign was right down or it would have smashed the lights! In my haste I barked at the staff to hurry up as there was a big f@^* spider close to my hand and at that he let the sign down and jumped back. Seeing his reaction I also jumped well back thinking he must know what it was. That's when we lost track of it, but I remembered enough to spot it when I visited the surviving Australia exhibit at the Sydney Museum.

While I was over there I thought it was a good idea to see the sights and so I flew up to Cairns to go diving on the great barrier reef and encountered a 6 foot white tip shark less than 5 minutes after getting off the back of the boat! I swam about 40 feet away and put my mask on deciding to have a look under the water, to my shock about 4 feet below me was this shark casually swimming past, it had no interest in me whatsoever and I suspect it was leaving the area as our boat and thirty odd divers had just shown up making a lot of noise. Still even the sight of this creature so close was enough to make me still! I hovered there for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a minute as it made its way into the murky depths. After it had passed I swam the reef for an hour or so and then returned to the boat which swiftly took us to our second spot. Again I saw another shark but it was a bit smaller and again was making its way away from our noise. The reef itself is just as you imagine it, full of colour and life and the fish don't even care that you are there, its amazing how close you can get! From Cairns I flew back to Melbourne for a couple of days with E and a few good nights on the town with CH, his twin and as many other showmen as we could find. The flight home was with a company called Tiger Airlines, if you have problems with Easy jet, Ryan air or other cheap flight operators you really haven't seen anything. The seats in the plane were that cramped together that someone my height (6'1") could not sit without their knees touching the seat in front, even if I sat bolt upright in the seat I still touched the seat in front! It was without a doubt the most uncomfortable flight I have been on in my life, but at least the pilots knew how to fly the plane which is more than I can say for the taxi driver that picked me up from Melbourne airport upon my return. I think that I'm a good passenger, I have been a passenger longer than a driver and I have never felt the need to "back seat drive" but this was different. The driver was of what I assume to be Pakistani origin, I say this to point out the fact that I did not undertone what he was talking about while he was on his phone, even this did not bother me. The problem came on a back road just along the side of the airport. He decided to over take a lorry in the rain in pitch blackness, again I didn't have a problem with this as the road was flat and relatively straight, but upon completing his overtake he never pulled back into the left. Deep in conversation he kept driving on the right, I asked him to "get over" but he never listened to me, a few seconds later I spotted car lights ahead of us, again I asked louder "GET OVER" and deep in conversation he ignored me, a few second later the lights were upon us and I reached over from the passenger seat and grabbed the steering wheel riving it from his grip. I pulled the car over to the left and two seconds later a car flew past, missing us by no more than a foot ! After that the drive was quiet as he had hung up his phone looking like quite the idiot he was!. So moral of the story, even on hands free your not safe and I didn't appreciate that fact until it was proven to me. Having said this though, I understand the need to talk while driving, but to all you taxi drivers out there, your not just driving your working. Next it was on to Sydney for me, there I strapped on a harness and climbed to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and saw the Opera house along with a hand full of museums and city sights. The Bridge climb was amazing but you were strapped to a guide wire for 3 hours and you were exposed to the elements, so when the rain came you got wet. The first step was filling out a disclaimer form then getting your kit on and passing a breathalyser! The kit was a jumpsuit, walky talky (so you could hear your guide), sunglasses strap, hat , water proofs and heavy jacket. Everything was clipped to you so the wind could not blow it away and trust me there is wind up there. I chose the Experience tour as this took me up the inner arch and then to the top apposed to the View tour which just took you over the top arch to the top and back down. The route was not for the faint hearted as you had to climb over pipes and beams. There were points where you are walking on grate steal and you can see straight down and lets not forget the squeezes! Some of the turns and bends were low and very tight, lets just say the route is not for the over weight or the unfit. If you can't walk around the town centre for four or five hours on a hot day, you can't take this tour. It was obvious that the route and access point we were using were not intended for guided tours but this just made it even better from my point of view (being an Engineer) as I was walking on the paths that the maintenance crew would. There were junction boxes, control valves all within hands reach and although you knew not to touch anything, it was right there. This was not a "you cant hurt yourself" tour for anybody, this was the real thing and that was amazing. I was two days in Sydney before I flew home. The city was welcoming and I was impressed with the monorail. The design was simplicity itself, every 30 feet there was a single "I" beam about 15 feet tall (above ground) and no more than 2 feet by 2 feet square. Onto this ran the single track and the train, every so often there was a simple platform net to the track with steps to get up to it. Sometimes the track would go into a building and then back out again. I though this was clever, the people just used the steps and elevator in the building to get to the platform and it looked fancy ! I couldn't help but think to myself that this is something that could easily be done in the Uk, the "I" beams were placed at the edge of the pavement so the train missed the buildings but was still above the traffic, the idea could be built almost anywhere! I cant help but think how one apparently simple idea in a city at the other side of the world has forced me to think how far behind civilisation seems to be in my home country. My trip had been just over three weeks long and this in my opinion was ample time to see the best of Australia. On the journey home I got to enjoy the comfort of the Air Bus A380-800. To my understanding this is the biggest passenger aircraft in the sky, it was quite a sight through the departure gate windows. I arrived back in Glasgow at 11:30 am on the 2nd of December and was greeted by my family at the airport. When I got home there was a hot bowl of home made soup waiting for me.

After all's said and done I was glad to be home, even if home was -10 and under a foot of snow !