Showman brings fun of the fair to Wick
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ELIJAH Wallis feels at home in Wick but then that’s hardly surprising. The showman, who celebrated his 90th birthday on Tuesday, has been coming to the town for more than 60 years.
“I first came here in 1947 not that long after the end of the Second World War. I liked the place and the atmosphere. The people were nice and friendly. I was brought up in Glasgow and live there but I feel more at home up here. Every time I come back I feel as if I never left the place,” he said in an interview with the John O’Groat Journal.
Elijah’s links with Wick stretch back more than six decades but his family has an even longer association with the town as his father – also called Elijah – was a circus agent. He had been up to the Far North before the First World War to book the ground and to put out advertising bills for the circus.
During the war he served in the Royal Army Service Corps but when hostilities finished he decided to follow a Wallis tradition and get involved with the travelling fairs.
Elijah snr, who hailed from the north-east of England, went to Fraserburgh and worked his way north to Wick with his stalls, and his son and family have followed in his footsteps.
“I remember my first trip to Wick well. The harbour was full of fishing boats and was busy but they were difficult times then. We were just a small outfit and had mostly stalls but gradually things began to improve,” recalled Elijah.
Swing boats and other items were introduced and the shows would travel to some of the local villages as well as Wick.
During the 1950s other show families joined the Wallis’s and the ground at the Riverside had attractions such as the wall of death, the dive bomber, a wild west show and a boxing show.
IN those days before television had such an impact the shows were a big draw and people came from all over the county to attend them. The Wick Girls Pipe band paraded round the ground and helped to ensure large crowds.
But Elijah also recalled that it used to take around three days to travel from Glasgow to Caithness.
“The road was very bad then and it was much worse at the Berriedale Braes than it is now,” he said.
“There were no bridges – at Kessock, Cromarty and Dunbeath – and we went through the towns. Lorries were also slower so it took quite a long time to get here but everything has improved now and the trip takes about five hours these days.”
Over the years the equipment became more sophisticated and chair-o-planes were introduced – small ones for children and then bigger ones for kids and adults.
There was a Noah’s Ark which had a moving platform with lions and tigers round the sides but Elijah later decided to take the animals off and made it into a waltzer.
With the greater sophistication and danger came more regulations about the testing of equipment and later public insurance liability.
“This ground used to be black with people and gala nights used to be absolutely mobbed. We were busy in the 1970s and ’80s too and are still fairly busy now, but it is not like it used to be,” said Elijah, who believes that television and modern technology changed the appeal of the shows.
But he is optimistic about the future and is delighted that his daughter, Rosemary, and her sons, Greg (25), Warren (20) and 18-year-old Grant, are actively involved in the business. Rosemary, who helped on the candy floss stand when she was just nine, is based in Inverness and runs a snack bar but takes three months off in the summer to participate in the shows. The family run the Skydiver, Funhouse, a mini waltzer, an inflatable slide and a snack bar. Elijah still operates a small stall for children. Other families offer a variety of other attractions at the ground.
MANY things have changed over the many years Elijah has been coming to Wick but one thing has remained constant and that is his love of what he does.
“I am doing what I’ve always done and enjoy it. It’s great to see the smiles on the kids’ faces as they enjoy themselves at the funfair. It is worth all the money in the world,” he said.
And on the subject of laughter, Elijah recalled a time in the early 1960s when he went to Peachy’s chip shop in Dempster Street for a fish supper for himself and his wife, Helen.
He was making his way along High Street which was packed with people waiting for some well-known personality completing a Land’s End to John O’Groats marathon.
“The place was chock-a-block with people when I was making my way back. Suddenly someone shouted ‘Here he comes now’ before they realised they had the wrong person. I was so embarrassed I wished I could disappear but everyone had a good laugh,” he recalled.
His travels with the shows have taken him all over the country from Glasgow to Perth, Kirkcaldy, Aberdeen, Nairn, Keith, Oban, Avoch, Golspie, Brora, Lairg, Thurso, Wick, Castletown and to the Halkirk Highland games.
The season on the road usually covered the months between March and September. In the winter he used to drive lorries and work in the construction industry.
Sitting in his caravan at the Riverside listening to Elijah recount his life in the shows it is difficult to believe that this engaging, lively man is 90 years old. He clearly enjoys company and a laugh – but he has known personal sadness, too.
His son Victor, who was also part of the business, died when he was only 40 and within the past two years Elijah has lost his wife, Helen, his brother and sister-in-law.
They were all involved in the fair, too, and his sense of loss is obvious. However, Rosemary, his grandsons and the shows keep his spirits up.
Despite all the years on the road he always relishes the prospect of coming back to Wick. “In Glasgow, everybody is rushing here there and everywhere but I am more at home here and look forward to coming to the town. It’s like one big happy family here,” he said.
And how does he feel about the big step of becoming 90? “I wish the numbers would go back down the way but I am afraid I just have got to get on with it and that’s it,” he says.
“I feel quite good and am still quite active but having lost Helen in October last year makes things different.”
He is pleased his daughter and grandsons are keeping up the family links with the show.
“I am delighted and proud that they are keeping up the tradition. I am just sitting back and enjoying it all now,” he said.
Asked what is his secret for a long life, he replied without hesitation – “Keep yourself mentally and physically active and enjoy what you are doing.”
