Fairground frolics.

[Lou]

Hi Ed,
To put a bit more history into your story...
When I was about eleven, 1958, some gypsies set up a "fair" in a field in "Notty Ash" (a real district of Liverpool, not Ken Dodds fantasy)
It had old fashioned swing boats and roundabouts and coconuts, nothing modern at all.
the only thing that attracted me was an old furniture van which had the back completely open. The interior of the van was empty except for glass bottles of every description hanging on strings from nails that were hammered into a wooden backstop against the drivers cab.
An elderly lady with a pinafore (as working-class older ladies still wore) and her hair in a bun, held (what I know now to be) an SMLE tubed down to a 22 rimfire. The ammo and the money were kept in her pinafore pocket.
It was pay per shot. Sixpence I think, and she loaded the gun and handed it to you and you shot a bottle which smashed into smithereens.
A little boy hopped into the wagon afterwards and replaced the broken bottles.
MEGA! I thought I had shot a .303!
That was obviously real ammunition and such shenanigins, shooting glass, no safety goggles no hearing defenders and allowing kids to shoot a real rifle, would cause apoplexy in a health and safety officer!!!

Just a point. Although that was real ammo, those proper fairground galleries used a short 22 round with what was basically pastry as a bullet. It went neatly through cardboard but it would have disintegrated had it hit anything hard. I remember at those galleries the owner would duck under the shots to take money off a punter at the other side of the range. Not a good idea if the shot would have been fatal!!!

[skeeter]

Hi Ed

Here is the fairground thread.

ATB

Jon