The Wall of Death
Have you ever wondered what it's like to ride a vintage motorcycle at 30mph with one leg hanging over the handlebars while being 90 degrees to the vertical and 20 feet off the deck? To satisfy the curiosity of those who have, Phil Sampson has been to meet a man with a very different kind of wall at the bottom of his garden.
With no pun intended, it's a dying art, the Wall of Death. Back in the '50s and '60s, the halcyon days of the travelling fair, it was common to find two or three Walls competing on the same showground for the attention of the crowds who, eager for a fix of thrills and spills, flocked in droves to gawp and gasp. But by the 1970s, the writing was literally on the Wall as the fast, high-tech rides began to take over. Now it's all very different indeed: Theme parks have gobbled up much of the funfair's trade and, for those who do not get out to seek their entertainment, virtual reality has largely taken over from the real thing.
And so the Wall of Death all but disappeared from the scene. Just one or two permanent Walls remained attracting flagging audiences at seaside amusement parks. One such was Dreamland in Margate, which is where our hero, Allan Ford, plied his trade until his female riding partner - the world-renowned Yvonne Stagg - committed suicide, precipitating the eventual but inevitable collapse of the show.
Since then, Allan, who learnt his trade from another of the Greats, Tommy Mesham, went on to ride the Wall of Death in - of all places - Iran, before returning to his Surrey home in the early 1980s at something of a loose end. “The trouble was that there were no Walls left operating over here”, he explains. “Which made it somewhat difficult for me to find work”, he adds with a wry smile. You can just imagine the scenes at the local job centre: “Occupation?……”
It was in mid-1985 that a possible solution to Allan's problems appeared on the horizon at Skegness where a derelict, portable Wall of Death machine, complete with a set of derelict motorcycles, came up for sale. “It was a case of my buying it or the whole lot becoming firewood and scrap iron”, he recounts. “The job was to take it, restore it and then go on to operate it. I decided to give it a go”.
Allan's Wall of Death machine is as portable as any 20 ton object can be: “We had to buy three trucks to move the thing and its generator home”, he says. Eighteen months of hard labour followed, painstakingly renovating the whole affair, a complex arrangement of wooden panels, struts and reinforcing wire.
The three bikes that came with the Wall were vintage Indians, which were also lovingly restored. Experts consider these simply the best machine for the job for the singular reason that their peculiar leaf-spring suspension arrangement over the front wheel makes an ideal footrest when performing trick riding. “We spiced things up as well by adding a couple of go-karts and a few Hondas”, Allan adds.
By 1987, Allan Ford and his newly restored ‘Motordrome' were ready to go on tour. “The biggest problem was finding the staff”, he recalls. “Yeah, there were still a few riders around, but tracking them down and then keeping them happy was another matter. It's always been the same with fairground attractions; you need your performers, so they've got you, you see. Another problem is that you're living together for seven days a week when you're out on the road, and that's always going to be a recipe for trouble”.
Allan's first season was a partial success: “We made a few mistakes”, he admits. “Getting the right venues wasn't so easy, the weather was lousy and the trucks got stuck in the mud a few times. But all in all it mostly worked out quite well”.
Ten years on, he's still at it. This year, a series of venues are planned over the summer months. “It's going to be a great show”, insists Allan. And with performers billed under such unlikely names as Christopher Lee and Ken Speed, who's to doubt him?
But what about actually riding the Wall? To the casual observer - who peers at the spectacle from over the top of a so-called ‘safety' barrier comprising a thin wire rope, it is an awe-inspiring sight. “Actually, it's not too bad at all”, reassures Allan, “providing you don't mind pulling 3g while being on your side and going round in circles. Dangerous? No, not really. In fact more people have been killed assembling Walls, when the heavy wooden panels have fallen over on top of them, than riding them.
“When you're up there, you just have to concentrate on what you and your team mates are supposed to be doing. We do combination riding and racing, so there has to be good communication, most of which goes unspoken”.
According to Allan Ford, most riders are taught to ride anti-clockwise. “There's no particular reason for that, but it does appear to be the convention”, he says. “After all, you wouldn't want two riders travelling on the same wall in opposite directions. Now that really could be dangerous. The funny thing”, he concludes, “is that I have never met anyone who could ride in both directions.
“In fact, it reminds of a famous story about a Frenchman who was so infatuated with the Wall of Death that he built one in his own back garden. Trouble was, he taught himself to ride the wrong way round the track and was never able to find a job afterwards as there was nobody out there able to ride with him!”
The History of the Wall of Death
The Wall of Death traces its origins back to the early days of US board-track racing, a sport akin to speedway in which motorcyclists competed around a slatted wooden oval. Over time, as the bikes became faster, the bends were banked to accommodate the higher speeds, eventually becoming raised almost to the vertical.
This in turn led to the concept of the ‘Silodrome', a vertical cylinder which permitted a flat out, heart-stopping motorcycle racing spectacle. The idea captured the imagination of the public and soon the Silodrome had found its way to Britain.
Here - and surprisingly not in the States - is where it is believed that the marketing man stepped in to create the title, ‘The Wall of Death'. It is hard to say who came up with the name first, but the Todd family of Ramsgate were among the leading contenders to lay claim to the mantle.
Ramsgate was home to one of the first Walls in the country. There, in the Merrie England amusement park, local boat builders were drafted in to construct a permanent, wooden wall, which was dubbed ‘The Drome of Thrills'
The Todds - George, Frank and Jack - eventually each went on to run their own show. Competition was as tough as rival operators worked the same fairgrounds vying for the custom of a public mesmerised and fascinated in equal amounts.
As audiences became harder and harder to attract, so an ever-more outrageous collection of acts appeared around the country: Blindfolded riders, passengers towed on roller skates, a girl plucked from the crowd to ride on the handlebars, Austin Sevens, bikes with sidecars, even bikes with sidecars and a lion or a tiger as a passenger were all recorded.
Word of the Wall spread around the globe and was soon thrilling audiences as far afield as Sweden, South Africa and China. To this day, in Gorky Park stands a concrete Silodrome which was used as a training ground for up and coming Soviet riders.
Variants of the Wall of Death were tried from time to time. The celebrated music hall troupe, the Tom Davies Trio, experimented with a spectacular show entitled, ‘Whirling the Whirl - Motoring in mid-air'. A particularly sinister mutation was the ‘Globe of Death', where riders whizzed around trapped inside a Gladiators-style mesh globe watched from the outside by an admiring crowd.
Permitting the best possible view was always an issue for Wall constructors. The UK builders favoured the ‘peer over the top' viewing gallery method, but some Walls were slatted so that the public could watch through the gaps to get closer to the action. The Germans even constructed Walls with windows.
The famous names of the Wall of Death live on in the memory of those who grew up with the travelling fairs and seaside showgrounds: Tornado Smith of the Southend Kursal; The Bombshells, an all-girl troupe; The Death Riders ‘Stunt Riding around a Perpendicular Track, breaking every Law of Gravity!' were just three of the better known acts.
Today, there are just a handful of these old-time riders left alive. Even fewer in number are those still out there riding the boards on vintage equipment, presenting to still-eager public the inimitable spectacle that is the Wall of Death
Contact:
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E-mail: psampson@albanycom.co.uk
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