John Morris spent countless summers working the concession stand under the Bill Lynch Big Top. “All the times we had,” he says.

The Halifax apartment where John Morris Junior and his wife, Marg, live is neat, clean and filled with keepsakes from his long, eventful life. Not a sign, though, that he spent three-quarters of a century crisscrossing the Maritimes in summers as one of the nomadic carnies who toiled at the Bill Lynch Shows. Don’t read too much into the omission; who needs mementos when you have such vivid memories? The spry, straight-backed octogenarian wouldn’t take back a day of his life under the Big Top.

I was born in 1927 at the old Infirmary hospital in Halifax. We had seven in my family—five girls and two boys. In June 1935, when school was out, I went over to Charlottetown on the ferry from Nova Scotia, by myself. I was about eight but I stayed with my father. I was excited. All the rest of the crew that I hung around with had to stay home.

My father was the first man to sell candied apples and popcorn for Bill Lynch. Bill brought a cotton candy machine in from New York for my father. It worked the same way as the old Singer sewing machine: you’d work the pedal and it had a crank handle that you turned to pour the sugar in the top. It crystallizes so fast that when you’re walking by on a real hot day, with just a little breeze, you’d see all of these fine crystals in the sky. We still have the same machine.

We’d dip the apples in a solution made of glucose, coloring and sugar. You need the right proportions and I can’t tell you what that is because that’s my father’s secret.

I was showed how to make apples and how to make candy, and learned all that stuff the hard way with the burns on my hands to prove it.

We sold peanuts in a one-pound bag. We still have the roaster. You heat it up and as the drum goes around it moves so fast that the peanuts don’t burn. My father bought that in 1908 or 1910 and paid $1,200 for it. It’s paid for itself.

You walk through the marquee and down the midway and the first thing you smell is my stand. I put a shot of vanilla in the cotton candy. The popcorn would smell just like the popcorn in the theatre. You’d go by the hotdog stand—“You wanna buy a hot dog?”—and you’d smell the animals, but that didn’t bother anybody.

Our stand was a noisy place with the machines. But you didn’t notice it—you’d hear barkers from the girlie show and the Hawaiian show rattling on about what was going on inside their tent, trying to get people into their shows.

We had calliope music—you played a keyboard like a piano but the music would come out “beep, be-ep, beep, beep, beep, be-ep beep”—I don’t know how many are still in existence.

The animals would make noises. When the lion started to roar we’d know we were in for some dirty weather.

The rides made their own clickety- click. The merry-go-round had its own music. Bill Lynch had organs that were next to none. We had one in the main entrance, one in the Whip, one in the Merry-Go-Round. We had ‘em in the back end. We had five or six.

There were so many things going on—high-wire acts, guys jumping into tubs—that everybody had a great time. You’d see the clowns. Every entertainment centre had a barker, ticket seller and ticket taker. The barkers had a routine that was pretty hard to beat.

When I first joined up there were certain areas I wasn’t allowed to go: the girlie shows, the gambling joints. But we were allowed in the Snake Pit and Monkey Land. Penny Land was a big go.

We weren’t allowed on the rides unless Bill said it was okay. Sky Plane was a miniature plane, a two-seater. We had the Loop-de-Loop, it would go around and stop at the top. Of course, we had the original Merry-Go-Round and the swings and the Tilt-A-Whirl. At that time we had the Whip and the Ferris Wheel.

There was a menagerie of animals: lions, monkeys, tigers, baboons and gorillas. One fellow, Texas Smith, would look after all the monkeys. He would even look after the snakes, which is a job I never wanted.

People would complain that Monkey Speedland was cruel to the monkeys but that wasn’t true. Monkeys would get in these carts and someone would set the gauge at maybe 10 miles an hour. They would go around and pass one another and squeal as they went by, making this crazy noise.

Animals are funny. If they know you and like you they will do anything for you. Alberta Slim was a singing cowboy like Gene Autry, and why he had this gorilla, I don’t know. It was a hot day and I had this bottle of pop. He put his hand out and he would make this queer noise. I’d give him the bottle and he would hand the bottle back after he drank it. I’d give him a candy apple. Well I never saw a human eat an apple that well. He’d have it all licked and use the stick to pick his teeth.

Some outside acts were brought in. An agency in Boston supplied acrobats. Up until right after the war Sol Solomon used to be a high diver: about 125 feet in the air and dive into a shallow tank. He would make one turn going down and go in feet first. Oh he was good. He was with us for about three years.

Another fellow, Feltmate, acted as a clown. He clowned too much and hit his head on the side of the tank. They had to put a plate in his head. He lasted a couple of years.

“Ohmy” and “Ohme” were an English couple. “Ohmy” was a guy who proclaimed he was 100 per cent tattooed. We used to say, you’re a liar. I used to see him and say, hi 10 per cent, and he would get right dirty.

One fellow—I thought he was really crazy but apparently life goes on like that—he had a flea market and he changed it to flea circus. I used to go down and watch him. He had this copper wire and would take a magnifying glass to see the head of the flea. He’d put this wire around the flea’s head and he’d be hopping around the table.

We had a tall fella out of Montreal, a sword swallower. They go down, they’re not collapsible. And then we had the Illusionist who came up from the States one year. He changed his daughter into a gorilla—that was quite the act. He was quite the lad, that fella.

There were more exhibitions in Nova Scotia in those days than I think we ever had. Oxford, there was an exhibition, and we had Musquodoboit and Windsor. Lunenburg, Bridgewater, Yarmouth and Shelburne. We used to have Sydney and North Sydney, and Glace Bay was a good one. They used to say Glace Bay was rough. Only rough if you were looking for it. You go down there and they’re show people, they love entertainment.

We travelled by boxcar. They had two with seating capacity, but it would be better to go by open boxcar—you’d have sandwiches made and everything. It was just a boxcar opened up and we would put our equipment in there. We had 14 and sometimes 16 boxcars. So we had a pretty big show.

A lot of things you sort of remember. I think I only stayed in one hotel. Every place I went I had a home to stay in. They took us in, did our wash, did our laundry, gave you breakfast in the morning and the total pay would probably be about $5 a week. Some of them wouldn’t even take that.

We didn’t have to worry about next year because our room was going to be there. We made friends with them people for years and years and years. We were always travelling and meeting people. Even today I will go into a different place and someone will say, “God, I thought you died.”

All the times we had, talk about the good times, talk about the bad times. We only had one hurricane hit the show, in Sydney, and that’s when everything broke down—everything except for the Merry-Go-Round because they took the top off and roped it to the Ferris Wheel. We had two stands, one up in the front and one in the back, and we just took them down and laid them right flat.

There was a top and a fellow by the name of Slim operated it. The wind hit that top, and it went up and they haven’t found it yet. It pulled the stakes right out of the ground, and that thing just twirling. We figured it’s out in Sydney Harbour somewhere.

I worked for Bill Lynch until a couple of years ago. I guess I’m still working there, helping them repair machines and stuff like that, even though I don’t get that heavy pay.

I don’t think I would ever want to be in another profession. I was the guy who tried to make you happy. There’s not a job going that makes people happier than us.

When I was a kid I always had money in my pocket. The show would run 24 or 25 weeks, May to October. It worked out fine because in October I went back to school. In the winter the other fellas all had different jobs or would go back to school. I finished Grade 10, which was quite elaborate at that time. After that, I went down to the waterfront and worked as a longshoreman.

A lot of fellas worked there. But they looked forward to the spring to get back on the road, and visit all their old girlfriends.