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Fairgrounds, theme parks, circuses and carnivals
Tell us about the time the fairground came to town and you were sick in a hedge; or when you went to a theme park or circus and were sick in a hedge
Suggested by mariam67
( , Thu 9 Jun 2011, 11:37)
Tell us about the time the fairground came to town and you were sick in a hedge; or when you went to a theme park or circus and were sick in a hedge
Suggested by mariam67
( , Thu 9 Jun 2011, 11:37)
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carny for a day
I worked for a genuine pikey. Not someone who wears cheap clothes and uses common phrases; a lady whose parents were travelling showmen, proper ones who didn't pay road tax and lived in caravans. She, however, had settled down and lived in a real (pre-fab) house on a plot of land the family had bought. So they were respectable, and God forbid you if you thought they weren't.
From 15-18 I worked for her in the school holidays at village fetes, selling burgers, running a little kiddies ride and doing the tombola. The tombola was very simple. Tickets in a washing up bowl, and you buy five for a quid. Any odd number wins a teddy bear of some description.
There were only even numbers in the bowl. If someone had spent a few pounds, or no-one had won for a while, I would "give the tickets a shuffle", stick my hands in the pile, and palm one of the odd numbers I had up my sleeve onto the top and in the middle. The deserving punter would almost always pick the right one out.
I think people thought the proceeds were going to some village charity.
( , Thu 9 Jun 2011, 23:51, 8 replies)
I worked for a genuine pikey. Not someone who wears cheap clothes and uses common phrases; a lady whose parents were travelling showmen, proper ones who didn't pay road tax and lived in caravans. She, however, had settled down and lived in a real (pre-fab) house on a plot of land the family had bought. So they were respectable, and God forbid you if you thought they weren't.
From 15-18 I worked for her in the school holidays at village fetes, selling burgers, running a little kiddies ride and doing the tombola. The tombola was very simple. Tickets in a washing up bowl, and you buy five for a quid. Any odd number wins a teddy bear of some description.
There were only even numbers in the bowl. If someone had spent a few pounds, or no-one had won for a while, I would "give the tickets a shuffle", stick my hands in the pile, and palm one of the odd numbers I had up my sleeve onto the top and in the middle. The deserving punter would almost always pick the right one out.
I think people thought the proceeds were going to some village charity.
( , Thu 9 Jun 2011, 23:51, 8 replies)
Harsh
My favoured alternative, as run by me at a couple of village fetes is the 'perennial lager tombola'. You assemble a stall with all the usual crap (bottles of shampoo, tins of peas etc, and then when some poor chump wins one, you offer to swap it for a tin of cheap Polish lager from the slab by your feet. When this is inevitably accepted, you slap a new raffle ticket on the shampoo, put it back on the stall, and recycle the whole lot. The net effect is of you selling 30p tins of lager for £2.50 a time, and still having all the stuff ready to set up the next tombola.
( , Fri 10 Jun 2011, 7:52, closed)
My favoured alternative, as run by me at a couple of village fetes is the 'perennial lager tombola'. You assemble a stall with all the usual crap (bottles of shampoo, tins of peas etc, and then when some poor chump wins one, you offer to swap it for a tin of cheap Polish lager from the slab by your feet. When this is inevitably accepted, you slap a new raffle ticket on the shampoo, put it back on the stall, and recycle the whole lot. The net effect is of you selling 30p tins of lager for £2.50 a time, and still having all the stuff ready to set up the next tombola.
( , Fri 10 Jun 2011, 7:52, closed)
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