Sponsored by
Oliver Cross: Gun, knives and all the fun of the fair
LAST week I used a picture of a little boy, astonishingly well dressed for a two-year old, having knives thrown at him.
That, for various reasons but mostly because the picture's so entertaining, was the third time I had used it in recent weeks, each time justifying it with increasingly wild speculations.
But this week I got brought back to reality – the little boy phoned me up. He's Garry Campbell, now aged 56, and he wasn't actually in mortal danger in the picture because he was part of the family knife-throwing and sharp-shooting act, which had an extremely good safety record.
Mind you, the lad might have been right to look a little worried because his grandfather, the man throwing the knives, wanted to join the RAF at the start of the war but was rejected because of his defective eyesight.
In any case, the knives weren't really being thrown, they were placed there as a publicity stunt devised by their distinguished fairground family, the Shufflebottoms – and in fairground-pedigree terms you can't get much better than the Shufflebottoms; Garry's great-grandfather was crushed to death by a horse while performing as a rough rider with Buffalo Bill's circus.
This understandably put the family off horses, and therefore circuses, for life and they turned, mostly under the name of The Colorados, to speciality fairground acts, although still staying on the wrong side of the health and safety regulations by performing with real guns and knives.
The young lady in the much-repeated knife-throwing picture is not, as I wildly guessed in last week's column, the boy's sister but his mother. She's Florence Campbell, now in her mid-70s, as bright as a sharp-shooter and living in Holbeck, Leeds.
Florence retired as a performer aged 25 but the family tradition lives on. Garry runs dodgem cars in Mablethorpe, Lincs, and also the German sausage stall on Briggate, Leeds.
Waterhouse really had a way with words
I was upset by the death of Keith Waterhouse as a fan rather than a sort of ex-colleague because I don't think you can accept reflected glory from an un-met person who just happened to work on the same newspaper as yourself ages ago.
But I was very pleased to have some connection with Waterhouse because his 1981 book Daily Mirror Style was for a long time my bible, although Waterhouse wouldn't have liked that word, it being a clich.
The book, written as an in-house manual for Daily Mirror journalists but so good it went general, is really about the sensible use of words, primarily by journalists but also by everybody who needs to express themselves without falling foul (is that a clich as well?) of pomposity, bad grammar, tired writing, shoddiness or nonsense.
And I shouldn't have said 'really' in the last paragraph because the book is very much against unnecessary words; For example, Waterhouse looks at the newspaper headline 'Just why is Alien giving America the creeps?' and asks 'Why just why? Why not just why?'
Which of course needs italic letters, but Waterhouse is generally in favour of using italic, bold and other unsettling typefaces sparingly; I think his general view is that it's rude to shout at readers and it's better to use words, rather than the typography, to engage their attention. Which is all very well if the words are by Waterhouse but us normal folks need all the props we can muster.
Email to a friend
Print this page- Leeds United: Whites ponder next move in hunt for new manager LATEST
- Web poll: Who is to blame for Leeds United’s league position? VOTE HERE
- Leeds United: Time for Ken Bates and Co to listen up
- Leeds man remanded on sister murder charge UPDATED
- Leeds United: Aston Villa boss drops hint on Fabian Delph
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 0 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North west
