Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 13:43:44 +0000 From: Len Johnston Subject: sub: Bio continued The Fairy Just after the second world war my mother got a job in the Grand Opera house in Belfast. She soon worked herself up to a position of authority as head of the cleaning staff and this eventually allowed her to get the whole family jobs in the theatre when a show needed them. My father was usually in the "flies" operating the curtains and the backstage machinery. My brother operated the lights, changing colour filters and moving spot-lamps. No electronics or computers in those days, remember. Mother dressed the stars and loved every minute of it. I was employed as a call-boy. I must have been about twelve at the time. Now this is not what you might imagine! The task was quite different from that of the call-girls who operated just across the street. The call-boy's job was to get the artists on stage on time. This was at times no easy matter. I often had to dig them out of Robinson's bar and get them sober enough to go on-stage. But the biggest danger came from the chorus line. I would knock the door and call "Overture and beginners" then run for my life as the call invariably brought a hail of shoes at a velocity you would not believe! They had other nasty habits too. If they managed to entice a new call-boy into the dressing room he would soon find himself flat on his back with his willy being stuffed into a milk bottle. One of the girls would flash at him by lifting her skirt and nature would do the rest. The bottle would be impossible to remove within ten seconds! I met all of the greats. Laurel and Hardy were there and I got a signed autograph and a little salt and pepper shaker made to look just like them as a souvenir. Sadly they both died soon after. I didn't like Orson Wells. He boxed my ears for daring to suggest he was drunk when I hauled him out of the bar. I had the last laugh however. The newspapers agreed with me and Wells got roasted by the critics. There was one other so called "star" who walloped me but her fate was sealed the moment my father looked down from the flies and saw her do it. She was playing in Pantomime as the fairy. I don't know if you have this form of theatre in America but in Pantomime the principle boy is played by a girl! The ugly sisters in Cinderella are played by men and the whole thing is a scream. For six weeks after the fairy walloped me the show ran like clockwork but on the very last day father struck. The fairy was supposed to fly across the stage suspended on a fine wire. The ugly sisters also flew across the stage but they weighed collectively a lot more than the fairy. They needed a half ton counterweight. You got it. Father mixed up the sandbags "accidentally". Not only that but he altered the hang-point on her harness, dropping it several inches so that her point of balance was reversed. The fairy took off upside down with a noise like a moose being raped and with a velocity that would have put a space shuttle to shame. She rocketed right into the flies more than fifty feet above the stage and then the second trip operated, dropping the unfortunate fairy like a lead cannonball. Her strangled scream increased in pitch as she dropped until the wire twanged tight and she jolted to a stop with her nose a quarter of an inch from the boards. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she promptly passed out. The audience loved it. She got a standing ovation for a good five minutes as they carried her off the stage! Thinking about it now, I suppose it was fortunate she flew upside down or the sudden stop might have been a do-it-yourself hysterectomy. Father was sacked on the spot but it didn't matter. It was the last day of the show. The opera company was already on its way and each show hired and fired individually. He never would admit it was all done on purpose. There were no wimps in our family. We were expected to fight our own battles.