Loanhead for you, Loanhead for me

I worked my way north for four days from Ilfracombe to Loanhead last week.  The longest trip ever between gigs in my travelling life, it was both relaxing and enjoyable to watch Britain unfurl through my lorry windscreen.  The best was the last day of course.  If you are ever planning a road trip to Edinburgh from anywhere in the West of Britain, I thoroughly recommend the A701 crossing from Moffat.  There is always a temptation to cross further South from the M6, but the A701 is by far the most sensational route in terms of scenery and natural beauty.  It is also not such a major hurdle, once you have made a reasonably easy climb out of Moffat, the remainder of the trip follows the peaks of the hills with some amazing vistas opening at every turn.

Scotland’s galas are special, and Loanhead’s one of the best I have attended. I think they are closely tied into ex-mining communities and a way which historically they allowed hard working families to have a day to really look forward to every year, and which allowed for one local family’s child to be promoted to Gala Queen for the year.  It is a fascinating tradition and galvanizes the community in a way which doesn’t happen elsewhere.

I arrived a couple of days early which allowed a slow and easy set up on the field, the town’s Memorial Park. The day before the gala all the local schools (during school time) arrived for a special show in the park.  Part of the show involved them all singing the Loanhead Gala song

Loanhead, Loanhead Gala Day (repeat three times)

L-O-A-N-H-E-A-D

Loanhead for you, Loanhead for me

I had the song earworming through my head for the whole stay.

The gala day itself is over almost before it has begun.  A big parade to the park arrives at 1.30, three shows with the last one at 3.30 and then everyone was gone.  Luckily the promised rain didn’t arrive and the afternoon ended in warm sunshine and very well-attended shows. 

Also on the field was a colleague, Andrew Van Buren with his illusion show, and it was a great pleasure to have a few minutes to catch up with him.  Andrew’s father Fred started a family tradition of illusionists which is wonderfully told in a DVD which Andrew gave me.  Andrew is establishing a celebration of the life of Philip Astley (1742 -1814), the ‘father of modern circus’ in Astley’s home town of Newcastle next year and I look forward to being involved with that.

As I was setting up on the field the day before the usual line of portaloos were being run alongside my pitch.  As I watched it became obvious that the line of toilets would reach right into the space that my audience would occupy.  I went over to the men and asked them to stop as it was obviously some mistake.  The leader of the men was a Glaswegian and built like a brick version of the plastic toilets he was unloading.  He also had anger management issues.  Why is it that Glasgow male citizens often have this classic character trait?

You can imagine the situation as I remonstrated that the line of toilets couldn’t come into my audience space and he insisted that he was placing the toilets where he had been told to do and I could just ‘F*** off’.  I managed just in time to find a committee member to ask angry toilet man to put them elsewhere, but not before he threatened to drop a toilet which he had lifted single-handed from his truck onto my head.

Oh the joys of open-air entertainment.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

An open letter to the Ilfracombe Victorian Celebration Committee

As I work my way slowly north to Scotland after a week with you in your lovely town, the changing landscape of Britain unfurling in my lorry windscreen has allowed me time to reflect about the week gone by and I am making those reflections in this open letter.

The weather was against us from the start.  It was a one day wonder week but thank goodness the one day was the Saturday. Of course we are staunch in our attitude to the weather in these islands and none so consummately so than the fabulous array of Victorian re-enactors who form the solid British backbone of your event. The strolling Victorians who wend their way from many corners of the country in such superb costumes made the week all it was.

But other things made it such a great occasion too. The town’s traders and shopkeepers who for the first time in many years rose to the occasion and dressed themselves and their windows with such artistry and colour.  The superb art competitions which produced a dazzling array of work so professional that the young person’s winning entry was shown in one of the town’s gallery windows alongside a picture with a £3 grand pricetag.

Many people and groups deserve individual thanks and praise. The Junior and Infant schools who dressed up and made their way into town against the rain to show their willingness to take part. The event and venue providers who all rallied round to offer fantastic discounts and offers, Rita Clews, Ilfracombe’s own Queen Victoria, The Studio Players, the Marriotts, Alison Nicholson, Sonya Moore, the Holy Trinity bellringers who rang a special peal, Sara Hodson and Ilfracombe Museum, the Library, Angle Twitch and Exmoor Border Morris, Heather McNeilly, Susan Pengelly, Laurence Butler and Ilfracombe Musical Productions, the classic car club, Barbara and Events4Ilfracombe, Carole, Kate and the Landmark, Martin Morbidans who played the piano and Mel Risk who designed the logo.  Thanks to the team of photographers for some wonderful images, particularly to Tim Lamerton, our Victorian clad photographer. And then thanks indeed to all the professionals who were paid small amounts to bring soldiery, street organs, song, dance and drama shows, and extraordinary displays of talent to the town. Thanks to all those I've forgotten to mention by name...

Thanks of course to those who gave money to our Kickstarter project and to those who gave small and not so small amounts.  The event could not have happened without you.

And finally to the backroom boys, or in our case the girls, who made the event work in the way it needed to. To Joe and the street collectors, to Suzanne Jordan for updating the website and keeping it updated.  And lastly to Lindsay Derbyshire for being the first volunteer who responded to my ‘Needs YOU’ call out and without whom this year’s event could not have happened. It is Lindsay who has been solely responsible for raising the profile of your event locally, nationally and internationally via Facebook and Twitter and animating the superb collection of photographs which will be there for your use in future years.  Lindsay has also been there every day as my unpaid stage manager.

Given all the above, it was therefore with some sadness that, having crossed a very wet Celebration Circle at the beginning of the Upstairs Downstairs party on Sunday night, I was confronted by your Chairman who demanded £15 from me to come to the last official event of the Celebration.  My two guests, the wonderful Grymmtooms’ Travelling Museum who had worked all weekend outside in the inclemency of the weather, were also similarly refused entry.  I took my props, which I had already put in the hall in preparation for doing a special cabaret performance which I had been asked to do by one of your committee and left.

So a final suggestion for future events.  When people like Lindsay, Suzanne, Joe and many many others invest their own time and money to make your event such a success, as the Ilfracombe Victorian Celebration 2016 certainly was, it might be at least a decent thing to do to take the opportunity of the last night party event to thank them, maybe buy them a card, a bunch of flowers or a bottle of wine.

As it was an Upstairs Downstairs party, perhaps you could have told those who you invited in free so you could thank them, to join the servants at the back of the queue for the food.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

My wondrous new website

Well the old one had done great service.  The result of a short course a few years back at the local college where I learned enough HTML to cobble the thing together but it was certainly showing its age. (No parallels please) So it was time to move up and engage the professionals.  After a little research I discovered Verb Marketing (verbmarketing.com) in Liverpool and they have created new Mr Alexander smart phone friendly website.  Please do check it (mralexander.co.uk) and them out. I am very happy with the result, although as in all things there are always possibilities for improvement.

I wish the Royal Mail would improve a bit.  For the second time in a couple of years they have lost an important parcel sent to me and intended to arrive by their guaranteed next day delivery service.  A long story which I wont bore you with but the gist is that Timpson’s had to send my repaired Loakes (Quality Shoe) to me as they had delayed mending them. Royal Mail failed to deliver and they have still not been returned.  Which meant I had to dash out to buy a new pair.  Now I love Loakes Shoes. Hand made, British and quality. A bit like I aspire to be. But they need to be worn in.  Ideally slowly an hour or so at a time, building up to a full day, with manipulation of the leather between wears.  They then mold to your feet with the attention of a dear close friend and last more than a lifetime. I had no time, so the battle between my new Loakes and my feet is on and currently the Loakes are winning. I am at the wonderful Crich Tramway Museum and the road from the lorry to the stage is a painful half mile.  Timpsons, to their great credit, have offered to buy the shoes for me.  A tidy £165.  My grandfather, himself a shoe salesman, would turn in his grave at that price.  If the others do come back I shall be a man of two pairs of Loakes. A sure sign of success in life you must agree.

The layout at Crich needs some improvement too.  Although I really love the place I still haven’t found my spot.  It often takes a few years coming to a show every year to find just the right site for the stage.  It has to face the sun, sit on firm level ground, be easily accessible with the lorry and away from other distractions, particularly noisy ones.  So this year I’m definitely in the wrong place.  A vehicular song and dance to pull on, facing South East, on extreme cobbles and with a Gavioli organ alongside.  I hate fairground organs.  Well let me say I hate them next to my stage.  I like them in small doses if they are a way away.  The incessant 4:4 time, driven I guess partly by the demands of the machine, always reminds me of soldiers marching to war.  I deliberately try to walk out of sync with it when I leave, yearning for syncopation and offbeat mellow jazz.  It also means that I have to leave to preserve my sanity and can only work when my show is timed and they turn the thing off.  For many entertainers this is fine.  It’s what they do.  Half hour spot then sit around drinking tea until the next timetabled spot.  Not this entertainer.  I love the times between shows when I can play and practice with my props.  Many of my best routines have been developed improvising in these interludes. But the sudden blast of Colonel Bogey from the Gavioli puts paid to all that and I am forced to sit around and drink tea like other entertainers.  My body and mind go cold and bored and it takes even more effort to rise up for the next show. 

Maybe next year they will find me somewhere to fit in.  I love the place and apart from the exact location I fit the place like a glove. Or maybe like a pair of well worn Loakes.  I can dream of and work towards both.

All the best from a rather painful road near you,

Mr Alexander

It’s never as bad as I think

Since I last wrote a lot has happened.  The season is now properly underway with Herts County Show an almost distant memory.  Once the main season starts the days roll by with such a speed it’s hard to catch up.  Herts County was another success with even bigger crowds, great weather and shows which were met with universal approbation.

For a while though it was touch and go.  The week before was the normal Mr Alexander rush-around, finishing off props, buying a few new ones, with Rob, my scene painter finishing off what I now know to be called a Sally Ann (the strange contraption folk put their head into for a photograph at the seaside) and which is now in operation alongside the stage.  Suddenly I realised on the Monday that Blue was limping badly, not putting any weight on her rear right leg.  I hadn’t seen anything happen but this was a real worry.  I took her to the vet and Blue made such a fuss while she was trying to examine her that she could only give her some painkillers and anti-inflammatories and me the advice to rest her and monitor it. By the Wednesday with me due to leave for Hertfordshire the following day it seemed even worse so I took her back and she had a sedative jab so the specialist vet could examine her.  I was worried it was the ligament in the knee which sometimes snaps on Bichons.  Mimi had it happen to her and it had been a nightmare for her.  It didn’t bear thinking about if Blue needed that operation.  However the specialist said he thought it was a muscular strain of her thigh so rest would be the only thing and more anti-inflammatories. I suspect that it was the jumping in and out of the lorry that may have done it.  Blue is such a feisty little dog and is in and out all the time.  A big jump for a little dog.  Mimi just waits to be lifted in and out and knows her limits.

In the rush-around I rehearsed the Verity V performance and it only now needs the dress. I have a wonderful Commedia style mask (I’m not yet brave enough to dare go out in public with a dress on without most of my face covered) and I have become reasonably adept on the Segway board.  For some while I worried about how I was going to carry any props around and my friend Ralph was worried about me catching the edge of the skirt in the wheels of the board.  Also I wouldn’t be able to bend over to put anything down especially with a huge crinoline on. It is amazing how sometimes what you are looking for is already there right under your nose. In the corner of my workshop, a relic of the days when the place was used by older people as a woodwork workshop, was a three wheel walker.  One wheel was a bit wobbly but with a little adaptation it would serve perfectly as a balance preserver and a prop bag holder for Verity.  I found a very old battered leather Gladstone bag that I mended and fitted on across the handlebars. Two challenges solved at one serendipitous stroke. I intend to cover the walker with pink plastic flowers and the bag is a perfect height for props.  I have found just the right script for her show and it is to be an early morning World Premiere at Ilfracombe.  I’m really excited about it. I have a feeling that Verity is going to be a popular addition to the repertoire.

On the way to Herts County, finally packed and Blue being nursed appropriately, the lorry broke down.  A diesel leak from somewhere in the depths of the engine.  Another potential nightmare. However the good man from Autohome fixed it in ten minutes and once again I had to learn the sometimes hard lesson that I need to relax.  The problem is usually not as bad as it seems.

By the time we arrived and set up next day at Herts County, Blue had stopped limping and looked at me as if to say, ‘What were you worried about, I’m a show dog aren’t I?’ And she is.  She has a fluency with and a love of working the crowds, loves roving around the audience making friends, recognises her music for her routine and loves sitting on the stage and coming down on cue from up centre. A real star.  Mimi also knows the cue and arrives from her favourite spot under the stage.  They make my life a real joy.  I bought them each a pink bowtie at the Show from a stall that specialised in bespoke canine couture.

What a funny life, never as bad as you think.

All the best from road near you,

Mr Alexander