A micro tour of my lorry home

 Not that I have ever made any New Year’s resolution I have kept longer than a few days, but this year the resolution is to write this blog more regularly and to become better at it.

As I set out originally to talk about living on the road, but I don’t think I’ve done much about that I thought I would start today with giving you a word picture of the space I live in, along with some real ones. Here’s a photo of what I see from where I’m writing this.

On the right is my bed which pulls out from the head end to make it wider so there’s enough room for all three of us.  More about my Menage a Trois another time!  Suffice it to say the other two have four legs each and are small and fluffy! My two mobile hot water bottles. Under the bed is a big open cupboard which has all my shoes and shelves for trousers, tshirts, socks and underwear.  There's also a gas water tank heater under there which keeps the bed warm at night and the clothes from the dreaded damp.

I have a big flat screen above the foot of the bed linked to an automatic satellite dish on the roof, a selection of favourite dvds and a link to the laptop for catchup programmes if I can receive an internet connection. I'm really into technology and love all that gadgetry.

To the right you can see one of the several original art works I have in the lorry. That one is by Chloe Needham and is a fortune teller - poster style. Following on to the right is my eye level oven and below it a wardrobe, mostly for costumes. To the left of the bed you can see through to the workshop/porch which is where I keep all the stuff I don’t need all the time, where I feed the dogs and keep coats etc. You can see the fold down dog food table. Beyond the porch is the cab of the lorry which I can crawl through to if it’s pouring and it’s where the dogs have their daytime space. Carrying on left is the wall of the shower/loo room and you can see the stove pipe from the woodburner and the small table which is a kind of office table. And the other small wood table is my dining table (I usually eat alone but if I have a guest I have another small plug in table like that one and a much bigger one for dinner parties which is stored away under the sofa).

And another photo from the other direction, which is where I’m writing this.  This end is my living room. Under the big rear window I’ve recently added a lovely burr veneer table top made by my friend Suzanne who is a furniture maker and designer ( www.suzannehodgson.co.uk ) – it looks like a rock pool and hides my really cool miniature twin tub in which I do my washing. Suzanne also made the strip wood cupboard doors you can see at the top above the sofa. The sofa turns into a guest bed in case anyone stays. Under the sofa is the gas air heater and a large log store for the woodburner. You can see the wooden lamp which I made when I was a boy, my chandelier (a little indulgence!) and the corner of the kitchen.  In the top right hand corner you can see the photo of three of my five grandchildren, Izzie, Jake and Jack.

This photo shows my kitchen and you have a slightly better view of the rockpool table on the right with the laptop I am writing this on.  I have a two ring burner, a microwave above it which you can’t see in the photo, a big fridge freezer and the usual cupboards and drawers.  Underneath the floor is a 100 litre fresh water tank and a 60 litre lpg tank which heats the water and the hot air blower and runs the fridge.

And finally the shower room/loo which is a wet room.  The water is heated by a gas boiler in the porch/workshop and gives a lovely hot non-stop shower, limited only by the 100 litre water tank! The loo is the standard caravan cassette type. You can see my chandelier reflected in the mirror!

So that’s really it.  A micro tour of my home.  If you’re thinking of breaking in to steal things I also have a very sophisticated alarm system!

There are many other little shelves and cupboards hidden away so I can store quite a lot of things I don’t need everyday. It is all designed to maximize the use of space and importantly in a way that stops things moving around when travelling down the road. It can all be packed down ready to travel within ten minutes.  One of the challenges of living on the road, often solved by blutac, Velcro and bungy! With a magic sprinkle of imagination!

I hope you enjoyed the tour. Living small as I do means that I have to be very picky about what I decide to live with and if it isn’t useful or beautiful and preferably both then it’s not on board.  I think it's a great way to live.

If you meet me at one of the shows, I would be more than pleased to show you round in the flesh, so to speak!

Until then, all the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

New for 2014

A few good things to report for Summer 2014 which is shaping up as another great season.  Firstly, one side of the lorry has been painted.  Mural artist Greg MacMillan has created a wonderful trompe l’oeil mural on the side.  Here’s what it now looks like:

This was taken at the British Library when I did a show there in October and turned quite a few heads. (Oh yes I appear at all the very finest British venues!).  Greg is aiming to do the other side soon which will be the rear of the house. Then it’ll be the cab which I think will be traditionally painted in showman’s burgundy and hand painted gold line work. Greg has amazing talent which you can see at a distance as in this photo, but up close the detail is superb.  Do try and come and see it for youself.

The calendar for 2014 is up on the website (www.mralexander.co.uk). A few new festivals.  Check out the website  for details of the Vintage Nostalgia show (www.vintagenostalgiashow.co.uk) in Wiltshire which promises to be a lovely event.  Vintage Nostalgia?  Very me, don’t you think? Another new one for me which is provisional at the moment but I am confident it will be confirmed; the Rhythmtree Festival on the Isle of Wight (www.rhythmtree.info).  I love the Isle of Wight and would live there if I ever won the lottery.  Not that I do it, I just dream of winning!

I’m really looking forward to the Just So Festival at Rode Hall in Cheshire in August.  Again just provisional at the moment, but I’m optimistic.  It was certainly my favourite event of 2013.  A really creatively designed event with so much to do, especially for the children.  Check them out too – a very nice website (www.justsofestival.org.uk) and an absolutely great event.

And I’m back at the Shrewsbury Flower Show after a few years of absence.  So happy about that as it’s a lovely traditional event with some great performers and displays.  And right in the centre one of my favourite British small towns.  Well worth a visit.

The truly great Bunkfest (www.bunkfest.co.uk) winds up the summer 2014 in Wallingford.  What a great free Festival of folk music, steam and beer.  Last year’s was a top highlight with one of my favourite bands the Oysterband headlining.  And the new layout on the Kinecroft (which was the free grazing for pigs and cattle for the people of medieval Wallingford) has improved the event tenfold.

And next year’s Great War event in Middlewich in October promises some fantastic nostalgic moments.  Another new one for me too.

And of course all the annual favourites.  Llandudno, Hollowell and the mini-highlight the Betws Y Coed Ferret Derby.  All three have been on my annual Calendar for over twenty years.  The summer would not be the same without them.

Anyway, it’s lining up as another classic year, and I look forward to seeing you at one or more of the events. 

Christmas may not have been that great but the New Year, that’s a different story…

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

‘Thank you, I loved the show’

One of the things that makes my heart glad is when someone in the audience comes over and says how much they’ve enjoyed the show.  I particularly love the teeny children who edge up to me, shy and embarrassed, but wanting to say thank you. Sometimes I almost wish someone would come over and say something critical but I guess that’s asking too much.  It’s really hard to be self-critical and as I live and work alone I don’t have the benefit of a trusted person to make positive comment and suggestion.

However that’s not the gist of this blog, although it might be of another sometime.  I love it when I have good press and sometimes people feel moved to email me or send photos which I really enjoy receiving. So when I received the following letter I thought that it was very special and Tom has kindly said I could blog about it:

hello Mr Alexander,

you don't know me, in fact we have never met but I wanted to share something with you and thank you for changing my life.

In the 80s I lived in chester on Parkgate Road, i was a keen magician and did the occasional kids show... I was in my teens.

One day i was hanging around in Chester City Centre, it was a beautiful summers day. Just outside browns a guy rides up on a unicycle pushing a cart (while riding), he spread a rope out and began to draw a crowd.... swept the pitch with a broom, made a hankie disappear, rode a tall unicycle while juggling burning torches. The show was phenomenal, the crowd was massive and at the end, when he held his hat out it was full of notes (I actually remember him asking the audience to make sure that their tip were all folded up nicely). I remember that the guys name was Mr Alexander, and have remembered that fact for nearly 30 years.

I now live in North Carolina. During the week I'm a school teacher ( teaching american history... oh, the irony!) but at weekends I'm a magician, busker, unicycle rider.

And i wanted you to know this. I've seen the "best" magicians in the world. I've seen goshman do his salt shaker routine, seen incredible magicians and jugglers.... but none compare to the show you did in the 80s on the streets of Chester.

I still talk to people about the Mr alexander Show and how it inspired me to perform, how one day... even now... I hope to do a show as great as yours and...having found your website thought it may be nice to e mail and say thank you... for inspiring me to do what I love and do it well. 

so there you go... thank you.... I will remember your show forever.

best

tom hughes

Now if you know me (the REAL me, not the Mr Alexander me) you’ll know I’m not really the sort to blow my own trumpet too loudly, but this letter was really special and here’s what I said in reply:

Hello Tom

I'd had a terrible night of stress and the nightmares reflected it. I wont bore you with all the reasons for the stress but there are many.

I sleepily turned on the iPhone and read the first of two emails. More stress.

I almost didn't bother with the second. A name I didn't recognise. Tom Hughes. But then I do like real emails and not spam so I did. His email gave me hope. Not that I was completely losing it but I was certainly questioning some of the basics. As you do waking in a lorry on a cold December Northern European morning.

Tom's letter retold the story for me of my strange life as a roving entertainer and of the serendipitous effect of it on the people who have seen it over the years.  Not that I have a huge inbox of praise but I do have a few! And many people do come over at the end of a show as they did in Portsmouth last weekend.

But somehow Tom's letter was special. Not only did it lift me at a particularly low moment (I do have a few of those) but it reminded me how those 'little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness' can roll on across the universe, gathering size and momentum and continue to have such a profound effect for good.

Tom's letter has reconfirmed why I do what I do. It's about much more than a half hour of entertainment. It's about a celebration of life, it's about following dreams, doing something with thought, dedication and joy. And it's about reaching out, particularly to the watching children, that these values are worth pursuing. Even if I am not aware at the time how much of all that is being noticed or understood.

So thank you. I will your remember your letter forever.

Best wishes,

Mr Alexander

And I guess that’s it all said really. If you’re thinking something nice about someone, or you have had a good experience as a result of something someone has done that has made a positive difference in your life, make sure you tell them about it. Pass it on!

All the best from a road near you…

Mr Alexander

"Do you do children's parties?"

I guess it’s the question that I am asked most often at the end of a show.  Of course it’s also the one question many entertainers dread.  I’m not sure why they don’t like being asked.  Is it that they think they’re above such things?  Maybe they think they are worth more.  As if entertaining a group of thirty over-excited over-chocolated seven year olds was somehow below their credibility and reputation.

Personally I always answer ‘Of course’.  However there’s always the essential problem of logistics and cost and so in the end I only perform at a few in the year.  Recently though I have performed at two and they were so different I thought I’d write about them in this blog.

The first was for a five year old boy and the second a six year old girl.  Boy’s parties are always harder.  The two or three token girls at the boy’s party feel slightly uncomfortable and huddle in the corner whispering whilst the boys craze around the hall, the mums retreat in fear to the kitchen to heap crisps, Maltezers and cocktail sausages onto paper plates, whilst the token dads hide in the corner and pretend they aren’t really there.  This is a woman's job. All the adults look desperately relieved when ‘the entertainer’ arrives and greet the saviour of the day who they hope will bring some sanity and meaning to the chaos.

And that is the job.  In my two recent parties, I felt one failed and one succeeded.  Well not failed entirely but I only managed to keep the thirty or so five year old boys focused for about half of the allotted one hour’s ‘traffic on the stage’.  They began to lose attention, wander around and make more noise than was comfortable. Whereas the girl’s thirty-five guests (mostly girls of course) stayed the course with almost rapt attention and probably would have gone on longer.  The first left me tired, slightly battered and frustrated, the second was energizing and uplifting.

What was different about the two events? It would be easy to blame the problem on the gender.  Boys are definitely harder to deal with.  But in the end it is the one year’s age difference that is the key. Five year olds have only recently been used to sitting up straight, not calling out and not punching their neighbour when they don’t have their way.  The school experience is one that the six year olds have fully taken on board and it is this ‘trick of the trade’ that I use extensively in the children’s party show.  Six year olds will respond to the teacher’s voice, the teacher’s look and the teacher’s expectations of good behavior. 

So my show for children’s parties is based on that simple technique.  I become a teacher who also does magic.  I expect good behavior and wait quietly until I have it.  I expect them to sit up straight and not call out (and that’s just the adults!).  And I always learn the names of the naughty ones, so I can praise them by name when they are good but also look serious and disappointed when they don’t.

So yes of course I do children’s parties.  But I must remember to insist that the children have had at least a year in school before I do.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander