The strange ups and downs of life.

When I was seventeen my boyfriend discovered that I had never been on a roller coaster. In fact, I hadn’t been to fairgrounds much, despite growing up in a seaside town. My father didn’t really approve of fairgrounds per se and my mother went along with his decisions.

My father had a similar attitude to the shellfish that was sold out and about around the town - almost certainly unhealthy, was the mildest thing he said about them. Neither did he go to pubs very much. Consequently we children never spent time sitting on the wall eating crisps and drinking lemonade outside the Fisherman’s Rest, a pub we were always hurried past on our family walks because it was notorious for the salacious paintings you might get a glimpse of if the door was open.

Another experience we missed out on was looking for Mr Lobby Ludd, a strange character who spent odd days at seaside resorts waiting for people to approach him and challenge him with exactly the right wording so that they could claim a prize. We could not take part in this delightful 1950s and 1960s activity because my father was a printer working for the local paper and thus the whole family was banned from participating.

Getting back to fairgrounds, funfairs or whatever you choose to call them, Silcockks travelling fair used to appear at various times in the year in a field at the bottom of our road. My older, and bolder, sister used to go along with her friends. The rest of us would clamour to be taken there by our mother who would eventually give in. It was always a bit of a disappointment. Candy floss looks good but cloys after the first few sticky mouthfuls. The most exciting-looking rides always looked too rickety to be really safe. My mother worried about pickpockets and other thieves and vagabonds.So while it was quite exhilarating with its noise and bustle, it was never really satisfactory. And when my sister came down with some mystery illness which my mother was convinced came from the travelling fair, that was the end of that. None of us ever went again. But I still occasionally see Silcock’s lorries around transporting funfair rides to temporary venues.

Anyway, my boyfriend of the time discovered that I had never been on a roller coaster and decided one day that it was time to remedy the situation. So we went along and had a ride on the Big Dipper. Compared with modern rides it was undoubtedly very tame and it has long since disappeared. But we had a ride and I did not appreciate it. My natural antipathy to being thrown around and hurtled down slopes was vindicated.

Something like thirty years later I accompanied a group of Advanced GNVQ Travel and Tourism and Business students to what was still at that point called Eurodisney, now Disneyland Paris. I was the foreign language expert, taken along in case proper French speaking was required. The educational point of the visit was to study the running of the hotels and restaurants in the theme park but for a few hours every day (fortunately only three days) the students had the run of the park and its rides. So did the staff.

Some of the accompanying staff were not a great deal older than the students and were enjoying themselves as well. They wanted me to join in the fun. I pointed out my dislike of roller coasters but said I would, albeit rather reluctantly, go with them on a ride that did not go upside down or in the dark. So they selected Space Mountain and at each stage of our queuing if we came across a notice someone would distract my attention. Eventually we were seated in a carriage of sorts and advised to put our sunglasses, etc, in a safe place where they could not fall out. Warning bells rang! Too late! We set off, up and up until the lights went out and we plunged down through the darkness, twisting and turning through 360 degrees to avoid meteorites and other space rockets.

By the time we got off, I impressed a younger member of staff by having turned a tasteful shade of green!

I tell these stories because today I have read about a man who seems to be addicted to roller coasters. Now 52, he went on his first roller coaster with his dad at the age of ten. His dad stopped accompanying him when the writer was 13 and they went on their first loop-the-loop ride. He continued, however, and has now ridden 1,200 different roller coasters.

Then he discovered clubs for roller coaster enthusiasts and visited the USA with the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain, visiting 14 parks in a two-week stay!

Who even knew that such clubs existed?!

It gets odder.

At some point he read an article in the club magazine - yes, the Roller Coaster Club has a magazine! - about a park in Wales where the owners and park management had stripped off to ride the roller coaster naked. The writer and some friends accepted a challenge to do the same and they have been going back year on year to repeat the experience. He and his companions have five times broken the Guinness Book of Records record for the number of people taking part in a naked roller coaster ride. 

Interestingly, his wife takes no part on this particular activity. She likes roller coasters, indeed they were married on a club trip to Las Vegas, but she doesn’t do the naked riding thing. That seems to be a macho activity. Perhaps his wife and the other wives have more sense!

What a strange world we do live in!