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The turn-out of the local fire brigade, all smoke and sparks and perspiring horses, was one of his favourite subjects, and I must have taken well over fifty of them for him. Less honestly (honesty was his long suit — his Sunday suit, always left at home), he would parade the town in person, mounted high on an open lorry, actively turning his camera on every little knot of people he passed. As the lorry was plastered with his colourful posters telling them to come and see themselves at such-and-such hall tonight, it left the people in no doubt as to what he was doing. Unfortunately for their hopes the camera had no film in it; it was merely a dummy, and, if they failed to see themselves on the screen, it was just too bad. The hall was filled and they had a good show for their money, so what's the odds?
There was another showman about that time who afterwards became more prominent in the trade than A. D. Thomas. He was not so clever and more dishonest, but wild horses will not drag his name from me, for fear the information that came to me about him may have become exaggerated on the way, as sometimes happens. According to the story, his method was very simple. He engaged the principal hall in several towns, spread his posters for a one-night show all over the place, stayed long enough in the hall to collect the money as the people came in and then quietly took his leave by a side door. No pictures, no machine, no anything! But then, as I say, the story may have been exaggerated.
The first time I went to Ghapel-en-le-Frith at the invitation of my new-found friend, John McGufhe, he casually suggested that I had better take my evening clothes with me. When I arrived and was introduced to his two sisters and his younger brother — the parents were both dead — I learned to my horror that we were all to go to a dance in a neighbouring village. It was, however, a fresh and very pleasant experience when I got over my first dismay, for a dance in those days and in a little out-of-the-way village was utterly different and remote from anything to be even guessed at now. Remember, it was long before the first world war. Jazz and the saxophone had never been guessed at and ways and customs were very different.
We five packed into a hired carriage, wrapped ourselves in many rugs and drove as fast as the horses would go — which was very slow indeed — over the ups and downs of Derbyshire country roads — of which, of course, I could see nothing in the dark — and arrived at length at the village hall. Then there was quick
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