One day when we went to Burscough with the children to visit the grandparents Silcocks fairground was setup on the field behind the garage across the road Heathers parents house.
Heather and I had gone to Silcocks while we were courting and had fun on some of the rides like the waltzer. I was persuaded by Heather and our mates that we should all take a ride on the big wheel. It was about thirty feet diameter and had about eight swinging gondolas that were just big enough for a couple to sit it. I was not very good with heights and it started to go round. It was alright on the way up, we could see all the lights of the other rides and tall all around and below us. It seemed that every nut and bolt that was holding it together was coming loose, it rattled and creaked as it turned and turned. The bulbs in the sockets that made it look so pretty were shaking in the sockets and flicked as the wheel shook. Then as the wheel got to the top and rolled over the crest, the seat started to tip over backwards and I started to panic. I felt my stomach go tight and I held on for dear life, it felt as if we were going to tip out over the back rail which was just at the height of my waist. I was going quite grey in pallor and was almost losing the battle to stop myself screaming. It got down to the bottom and as we started to go up the gondola rolled forward and I did scream as I fell against the lock bar across my stomach, it prevented us from sliding out of the seat but did nothing to reassure me that it would not come loose.
It went around and around for what seemed ages but I was assured that it was no more than five minutes. I wobble off at the end of the ride and nearly threw up on the grass. I have never been on a fairground ride since and I don’t ever intend to either.
We took the kids over to see the fair with Heathers Mum and her younger sister Morag. Of course grandma wanted to let the kids have a go on all the rides and they went on the roundabout and the little train ride. She took them on the hookaduck stall and they won a goldfish each. They were so happy with their little plastic bag each with the tiny goldfish in. The problem was what to do when we got home, we did not have a tank or bowl so they went into the biggest dish we could find in the kitchen until I could go out the next day and buy a tank. It was a plastic framed glass tank with a filter and I set it all up. I even constructed a hood with lighting so it could be a proper aquarium and not just a bowl. That started me on keeping fish, It was not very long before I decided that I wanted something bigger and more exotic. I decided on a tropical freshwater setup. I did not want to spend a lot of money so managed to scrounge second hand stuff from one of my workmates. I found a fish shop that was selling a lot of fitments off cheap as they were doing a refit and I bought some equipment from them as well. I ended up with a three foot aquarium on the top of a stand with a two foot one underneath. Tropical in the top and cold water in the bottom. Slowly I expanded my new hobby, I started collection windows and glass I found in skips when I was out on my rounds. I brought it home and taught myself how to cut it and make fish tanks using silicone glue. There were tanks cube tanks, hexagonal tanks, triangular and special narrow ones to fit on window sills. I made ones that were devided up into several sections so that I could keep breeding pairs away from each other but have one filtration system. I joined the local aquarists club and started showing my fish and got quite successful. I was following in the footsteps of my grandma Hart. Almost every flat surface in the house had a tank of some sort on it with a couple of years. I had rice fish from china breeding on the dining room window ledge, cichlids from Asia and Africa breeding in the garage, Mosquito fish from Florida on the bedroom window ledge and danios from Thailand breeding in the cupboard off the living room. I collected bog wood from the lake district and brought it home to clean it up in the back garden. That sold really well along with all the plants I was growing for the aquariums. Twice a year the fish club would have an auction and I would take lots of fish plants and bog wood to sell, this paid for my hobby. As I grew more experienced I decided to be a bit more adventurous and set up a tropical marine tank. I followed all the instructions about specific gravity of the water and maturing the tank so as not to poison any fish. I was not cheap but it was so rewarding when I got fish and it came to life with a regal tang, yellow tang and a pair of clown fish. I started to grow sea weed and got an anemone for the clown fish. It looked really spectacular in the living room. The strangest fish that I got were yellow sea horses, they were so slow moving until I put live brine shrimps in for the to eat. It was my pride and joy until I introduced some living coral on live rock. Unbeknown to anybody in the live rock was a pest called fire worm which only came out at night and decimated the fish over a period of six months most of the fish were killed and eaten by these worms. I did not discover them until one day I was doing a gravel clean with a siphon tube and the worms started to come out of the gravel in their hundreds. I had to do a complete removal of the fish that were left and throw everything away as there were eggs and larvae of the worms everywhere.
All this started with two fairground goldfish.
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