History of The Wall of Death

Presented by

Allan J Ford

I saw my first wall of death on a Sunday school trip to Southend as a child and fell in love with the sound, smell, glamour and dare-devil stunts. This love was rekindled when Tommy Messham's wall appeared at a fairground in my home town of Epsom. My persistant requests to "have a go" were rewarded finally by Tommy, so long as I used my own machine. I promptly removed the silencer from my BSA Bantam and tried my hand. I fell off a lot, but kept going back for more. By the end of the week I could just about get on the wall, although I'd crash coming off again. I could barely walk by the end of the week but I had just about managed to ride the Wall of Death.

From then on I was hooked. I built a special rigid-framed Bantam with a 175cc engine, and whenever Tommy was within 100 miles of my home I would take the Bantam in a van and he'd let me ride.

The following year I packed in my job with Barratts to work full-time on the wall. This lasted several years until Tommy Messham closed the show. I then went to work on the famous Tornado Smith's old wall at Margate's Dreamland fair-ground park, until that closed too.

My next booking was at a considerably different location - IRAN. It was a totally different ball game over there, so popular. We were usually packed out, putting on five shows an hour.

Coming back to England was a shock, discovering there were no longer any walls operating. This is where my dream started to form - reading the "World's Fair" (the weekly bible for fairground folk) I saw a wall for sale. There wasn't a lot of interest in it at the time, it is really only 20 tons of firewood for anyone who can't ride it. There was no generator or transport, but there were a couple of "butchered" Indians. I bought the wall and spent the next year restoring it and obtaining everything necessary to get the show on the road again.

My interest in anything connected to the wall has led me to collect a vast collection of memorabilia, old photographs, vidoes, posters and stories. I researched the history of my wall, which was built in 1927 and first sold to Pat Collins Funfairs, then it went to Elias Harry (who had an act where lions travelled in a sidecar), after which it was used by the Cripps family at Skegness seaside resort. Even my transportation has a history - a 1972 juggernaut, a Gardner engined Atkinson formerly owned by Antels heavy haulage company. It was used to haul various land speed record attempt vehicles, including Donald Campbell's bluebird whenever the National Motor Museum roadshow went out from Beaulieu.

Being the only wall in operation in England for a while, I feel I have helped preserve an important part of Britain's showground heritage. Not satisfied with this I then became the proud owner of a second wall, again in need of restoration.