🅽🅴🆆 David Walliams who do you think you are full episode 🍁 who do you think you 2024

to start his investigation into his family's past David's come to banstead in s to talk to his mom Kathleen his dad Peter passed away 13 years ago this is the house in which I grew up um we moved here I think when I was about two so it's the only house I knew as a kid no blue plaque out there yet but uh we're working on it and I'm sure my mom will have faked something oh know hello hi darling how are you right how are you lovely to see you after all these years I haven't seen you since I was about three or four but nice to see you let's get in let's get in get in get in get in come on you're looking wonderful thank you you had some work done or no so Mom what do you know about your family well I know I know a b about um my mother's parents have you seen this I've seen this photo photo yes this is my mother your grandmother this is violet and what dead animal is that on your mom's head this is her brother James and this is my grandfather so would have been your great-grandfather Alfred Walter Haynes what did he do well he ran a sort of amusements thing like a Fairground he had dods and there was also a shooting gallery where was this in London this was in Falcon Road in battery and they lived in sort of wagons behind where the Dodge were I I can remember it I didn't know about the fairground it's quite an interesting place well my mother didn't talk about it very much because she I I don't she thought it was sort of a bit lonely or something think yes I'm not going to say she was ashamed of it but I think grandmother I believe came from SSB because I can remember I was evacuated with my mother during the war first world war no the second world war David and um we went to stay with some relations in Salsbury and what do you know about Dad's family well you remember your granny Ivy she was just lovely I don't know how old you I haven't really changed have I one of the stories that she used to tell me was about a relative of hers who'd had shell shock during World War I did you know who that was who that was in relation to her it was her father her father I must have forgotten that because I didn't know for sure who she was yeah his name was he looks like quite a character got a real twinkl in his eye he has hasn't he and I guess it looks like everyone was like lining up to have their official portrait perhaps before they went off to fight have you ever seen this photo no oh so that's granny there you can tell that's Ivy it may even have been a christening photo this 1915 yes so it looks like John wouldn't have been around for the birth of his baby already in in France I guess or fighting abroad and this one is a picture of the baby who was in that photo love to Daddy hoping you soon get better so at this point seems like already something Terrible's happened to John and he's that's very very touching isn't it it is tou do you like me Daddy I know do yeah as in you don't you don't know me but you wonder whether he actually ever saw him properly when he was young I don't know it's very sad to think he he would be apart from his family for so long yeah I mean I don't like to be apart from my son for any amount of time whatsoever so um maybe not even to have met your child um while you're fighting abroad it's Unthinkable I do remember uh your dad telling me that his grandfather was in a place called Kane Hill which was an ice ation hospital or Asylum did he spend all his life in there I don't know great grandfather he was in the Grenadier guards then wasn't he that's a kind of a special regiment to be in right well I think so I me has a big reputation well the Grenadier guards are the ones that guard the palace don't they and they do when they do trooping of the color and things like that I think that's the granadier gods David starting with his father's side of the family to find out more about his great-grandfather John George Borman he's come to Wellington barracks in central London home of the Grenadier guards my mom was right the Grenadier guards are involved in The Changing of the Guard Jeremy Banning so where are we well we're here at the guards Chapel don't go into church as much you know have you ever seen the omen when they try and get that boy inside the church it won't be like that so I found out that my great-grandfather John George Borman was in the Gren guards in the first world war here he is I believe he got shell shocked and then spent some time in an institution well what I've dug out here is his service record and I've got the first page here you can see this is when he enlisted wow name John George bman grenad guards laborer and the key thing as well is the day 1914 so it's within 8 weeks or so of the start of war why do you think John enlisted so early he probably did so because at that time the country was in the midst of something we've never had before or since this massive Call to Arms men choosing to join the Army why would he have joined the Grenadier guards and not different regim if I show you here we have the next page okay 32 5'9 140b girth when fully expanded my goodness me 36 Ines complexion what does that say fresh fresh complexion the bit that dumps out to me there is his height 5' n that's tall for the time for the time yeah very much probably right material for the grenader guards I think it' be perfect certainly the right height thank thank you very much on the grenadiers of the senior guards regiment so this is very prestigious yeah very much so yeah you know bear in mind he's he's a laborer he's done pretty well for himself I'm sure he would have felt intense Pride a bit of cache in serving in the first Battalion of the Grenadier guards can you just about make that that's very faint yes expeditionary Force France that's right 16th the 3rd 15 to 8th of the 65th that's right 85 days in that period that is his first time obviously over in France by the time David's great-grandfather arrived in France in Spring 1915 the British army had suffered horrific fighting had frozen into deadlock with both sides dug into trenches facing one another across no man's land thousands of newly trained British volunteers were sent to man The Trenches including David's great-grandfather your great-grandfathers there a couple of months before an action in May of 1915 it's called the battle of festu bear and what we have here is a diary extract from a man called private Tweed who served in your great-grandfather's Battalion as well and his experience of Fest bear would have been very similar to to what your great-grandfather brother went through it was my first experience of he scores of Scots Guardsmen who had preceded us lay killed and wounded and as we approached the German lines our casualties were increasing Heaven only knows how I got through just unimaginable Terror that is it's the ultimate baptism of fire the regimental War diary describes killing the enemy bombing down trenches that's throwing grenades down trenches as well taking a prisoners as well so you're a laborer one day and then 6 months later you are trying to kill someone in a muddy hole perhaps with your bayonet with your fist strangling them whatever I is it's just terrifying F be is so he's then home for oh actually a whole year yeah so why would that be well there's nothing in the records that actually indicate why that is we have a postcard um which is from his family saying Daddy I hope you get better which makes me think in that time perhaps he was injured it's certainly possible the key thing is that then he goes back over to franch 28th of August 1916 yeah actually for then a whole the best part of a year what was happening in the summer of 1916 British are fighting the battle of the most people Battle of the battle of the S exactly the S makes everything that had gone before certainly at FES bear look your great-grandfather was involved in this would have been a forest or something this would have been yes I mean if you look closely there can you see de bodies dead bodies and it's exactly this sort of terrain that your great-grandfather would have seen and Advance through and this is just sort of ravaged by by bulus basically far oh it is like I know if you want to imagine what hell looked like it it looks like this and then after this another name comes to the FL as well as we look into 1917 his Italian the first Grand of their guards start to move up to Eep in Belgium now any soldier who knew that they were moving to Eep would have thought here we go and in July of 1917 they move I've read about the first World War I studied at school I've seen movies but when it becomes a story about my great-grandfather John it becomes a human story as's a laborer he enters the Army and finds himself in some of the bloodiest battles of the last 100 or so years so it's extraordinary how a person could adapt to those kind of circumstances somehow my great-grandfather got through the battle of the S but Eep what happened to him there and that is where I need to go [Music] next the first World War battlefields before it's weird when you drive through here you can't really see any evidence of of there ever being you know one of the worst battles of all time because it's just fields and farmland so it's hard to imagine my great-grandfather ever fighting here by summer 1917 this land had been devastated by War for almost 3 years as the Allied Forces bitterly fought the Germans for Supremacy over 100,000 British soldiers had been killed here by the time David's great grandfather father arrived in July 1917 hi Lucy hi David glad I worn my Wellies today it's nice to meet you my goodness me we're here at Sanctuary wood and if you'd like to follow me down into the trenches we can have a a chat about what it might have been like so I found out that my great-grandfather John George wman came to era in summer of 1917 by the 30th of July we know that John would have been in a trench very similar to this just to the north of here on the eve of waiting to take part in the British Army's next big offensive which they hoped would allow them to smash through the German lines push up to the Belgium coast and bring the war to an end and that offensive was the third battle of EP or is it's often known the Battle of passendale it's very famous it is and obviously being here today and they would have been wet because it did begin to rain they would have been surrounded very much by the the sights sounds and smells of battle had been very difficult to bury the dead and when they were buried they didn't stay buried for long so the SES and smells of dead bodies yes absolutely you peer over here and that's all you can see absolutely it would have been a terrifying sight and very much a hellish F really disturbing isn't it absolutely yeah and you've got to tread over them to try and kill somebody death is absolutely everywhere death is everywhere all with the knowledge that tomorrow that could be you and on the 31st of July at around about half 4 in the morning John and the rest of the Grenadier guards first Battalion went over the top to Journey on the B field so we're slap bang in the middle of the battlefield here and John would have started the day with the Grenadier guards in the British Frontline trenches just ahead of those white houses and we can see this on a map here so this would have been just across this line here and their first objective for the day was to reach this blue line which was the German front line and that's round about where those houses are they're really incredibly near to each other aren't they I mean probably see each other yes I mean it is close here but I think what's important to remember here is that John would have been surrounded by shell fire explosions left right and center with these shells going off all around you machine gun fire people dropping dead your left and right and you're just trying to push forward towards danger the whole time on top of that the landscape here would have been mud Splinter trees making it a lot harder to advance there would have been shell holes here which were deep enough for men and horses to drown in even it really was perilous so do you have any idea what happened to my great-grandfather yes and there's one more place I'd like to show you so what is this place we're here at an advanced dressing station like a hospital yeah this would have been where men wounded in battle would have been brought for initial treatment so this is the Grenadier guards Borman JG peek Southeast yes so we know that John was wounded in battle and this records that he was brought to a dressing station such as this um we don't know what what type of wounded no unfortunately the documentation doesn't tell us how he was wounded just that he was wounded fighting and what happened from here does he fight again or is this the end he was sent back home at this point and this marked the end of his War service he then disappears from public records until eventually in August 1918 turned up in naps fre military hospital and that's a whole year after he was injured yeah so what was he doing in that time I can't help thinking that John was lucky in a way not lucky to be wounded but lucky to be out of the war at the point he was wounded he'd been away fighting abroad for a whole year which must have taken its toll on him my grandmother told me that John suffered from sh shock so we have him turning up a whole year later at nap Military Hospital whole year later from being wounded which makes me think it has to be something to do with that to test whether his hunch is Right David's come to the site of napsbury military Hospital in hartfordshire now a housing estate where he's meeting historian came here in August 1918 now I believe he suffered from Shell Shock what do you need we do know that naps hospital was the local syum prior to the war during during the war it became a military hospital and there were spaces for men who were physically wounded but also some spaces for men who were mentally wounded we do actually have your great grandfather's medical notes so Borman John George enlisted September 1914 France March 1915 June 1915 invalided for sh shock I knew he was out of the war for a year and that's because of shell shock so poor man shell shock now known as post-traumatic stress disorder was a term coined in the first world war to describe the physical and mental breakdown brought on by fighting at the front line over 80,000 men were diagnosed with shellshock but at the time there was little understanding or sympathy for their suffering instead it was often seen as a sign of emotional weakness or cowardice returned to France August 1916 so even though he's been suffering from shellshock he sent back to fight it was gen as quickly as possible and to return as quickly as possible so returned to France August 1916 came back July 1917 went to CD where's CD that's a command Depot so clearly he's going somewhere to be assess it's sounding very much like he's really not coping in one way or the other so psychological condition Mana calm and unemotional talks quite freely about the voices of men talking to him and persecuting him for the past 6 months so it means he's hearing these voices in his head yes he's hearing voices in his head he's feeling persecuted by these voices clearly that's very very disturbing said himself in a par corner it's really tragic image isn't it just being left alone so M to himself that sounds really sad he comes across a very lonely I mean a few years earlier you're a laborer and now you're talking to yourself in a par Corner because you've been in these terrible terrible battles it must have been disturbing for him must have been disturbing for an entire and he's got three young children and of course there's this real concern they don't know if he's going to get better so what treatment would he have gotten this time at napsbury was relatively Progressive in modern terms we would talk about occupational therapy could have worked in the workshops in the left of their own devices so you know you could say there's a sort of benign neglect going on and then if we go on to July 1919 she says home for discharge he's home because he's deemed either able to cope or because it's deemed that his family can cope with him so do you know what happened to John next well the next record I have is this one from 1939 20 years later yeah and I see the St Kane Hill hospital this was the local Lun assignment and it was called a lunatic yes I can see down here Borman John G it's very sad isn't [Music] it I was pretty sure that John had suffered from sh shock but it seems that he was in a really bad way mentally it's not just what we might consider now to being depressed or something it's really strong mental illness and of course he's gone through hell in the first world war in these terrible battles and the things he's seen he can't unsee so he left the battlefield but he he taken it here it just never left his [Music] mind to find out why his great-grandfather ended up at Kan to the site of Kane Hill known at the time as the local Lunatic Asylum well I've come to Kane Hill but there's not much left of it now it's a building site which is obviously my natural environment nice to meet some Builders David's meeting historian Alice brambi hello Alice hello David welcome to Kan Hill Hospital thank you very much or what is left of it I've got a photograph you'd like to see what it used to look like okay so you can see this block here is the block that you're currently standing in front of so this would have been the reception building right okay so your great grand and the chapel we can see again that's pretty intact actually isn't it it's even more intact inside if you want to come and have a look inside so do you know how long my great-grandfather John was here at Kane Hill so this is from the admission register October the 21st 1919 bman John J I didn't think he was here until 1939 and this is only 3 months after he left napsbury so really he must have been home for a short amount of time and then came here and if you look Al certified so been certified insane he had so it's likely and perhaps his illness meant that your great-grandmother couldn't look after him what an awful decision to have to make to have to send the father of your children your husband to a lunatic asylum well there's another document here John George Borman died 28th and 9th 1962 so he was here for 43 years it's a long time to be in one in it's a lifetime it is a lifetime but that suggests that for 40 years his wife your great grandmother had to live life without her husband and literally never known any I'm amazed my granny had such a sunny disposition because she had to grow up without her father and in adult life her father was in a lunatic asylum and that must have been a really difficult thing to live with she probably would have be had to be very careful who she spoke to about it because of the huge stigma that was involved at the time regarding the mental health so we've all seen one FL of the CUO nurse would it have been like that or it's unlikely in a one flu over the cooku nest scenario that it would have been punitive and they certainly weren't meant to punish but every aspect of his life would have been regimented breakfast would have been at this time he would have eaten this food and that your great- granddad went from being a hero in the first world war into a military Hospital following that into a btic Asylum and during this time time here lost yeah just I guess became another another inmate you can see here that they tried to make life a little bit more fun for them General weekly program of entertainments quiz talk in club room elocution Class Cinema radio listening art class when I know my great-grandfather did like to paint because I've actually got these four beautiful little postcards he painted that my my seen some of his outwork cuz I've got some more here to show you so these came from these came from your amphibian good old aivan pretty aren't they very delicate they suggested Tranquility to me these paintings these watercolors they don't suggest a man who's terrified or scared they no they don't respect that at all actually do they they're rather pretty I think they're very peaceful and I hope that's the experience that he had here yeah me too it's such a sad story I look at he has no idea what horror he's about to face you know he was somebody who was a father he was a husband and he just becomes lost he sacrificed his mental health for his country and the reward was spending the rest of his life here there is one positive part of the story which I think is the paintings because the paintings make me think that his life here couldn't have been terrible CU he had a creative Outlet he had something he cared about and in my own life look I've gone through nothing like him but times when I felt down I felt grateful to to be creative because I'm glad they're still in the family and hopefully they'll stay in the family forever [Music] [Music] David now wants to investigate his mother Kathleen's side of the family so my mom gave me this Photograph it's of her mother my Grandma Violet with her brother James and then these are my great grandparents Alfred Walter Haynes and and his wife Kate she told me that my great-grandfather ran a small Fairground in battery was a little bit lonely maybe she was a bit of a high bouquet figure when it came to class I think the best place to start really is see if there is anything online um I'm not going to Google myself we got have a day off I am going to look up Alfred Walter hes so amazingly you can find the marriage certificate May the 20th 19 1909 Alfred Walter Haynes married Kate page he was 22 his rank or profession is engine driver which is surprising because nothing to do with uh running a fair he lived at 59 rampant road which is where I live right now so his father my great great-grandfather is wouldn't think that was a rank or a profession the marriage took place at the Parish Church St Martin sby my mom said there was a connection source so I think that's where I'll be heading next and I'll put it into the SAA rampant and see where it takes me my kind of place Davids comes to Salsbury where he's meeting historian Julie Anderson hello Julie hello David lovely to meet you lovely to meet you so we're in Salsbury what is this building this building is the general infirmary where people came for all of their operations and surgeries so I know that my great great let me show you okay here we are William Haynes 33 26th of July 1884 okay so what was he here for ah well let's go in and find out [Music] okay we are here in the original stairwell as it would have been when your great great-grandfather was a patient here his records tell us what he was in the hospital for I can't read that sorry so he was in here for poster ior polar cataract now as we know a cataract is a clouding of the lens um and that's to the back of his eye then is it correct I'm just going to show you the kind of oh and then the Cataract would have been taken out this is new and sort of cuttingedge surgery do we know if this operation went wrong and he became blind as a result it was highly likely he would have become blind as a result of the cataract surgery but I do actually have image of your great great grandfather you have a picture of him I have indeed my goodness me he's very smartly dressed isn't he he's quite s of juny character with his bowl of hat tucked back actually kind of really looks like character from like a sort of Charlie Chaplain movie or something like that does he no one really has mustaches like that anymore no no they are quite a magnificent Victorian maybe I could fashion I could bring them back but you can see here his left eye has been removed isn't it yes enucleation which was a procedure that removed the eyeball but left the eyelashes um was often um a complication of when surgery didn't go exactly as planned What would life have been like for my great- great-grandfather William Haynes in 1884 well I have something else to show you so this is the Salsbury times and South Wilshire Gazette Saturday October the 25th 1884 so very soon after he came out of hospital that's right the headline is is a grandfather's liability great title for a Victorian novel William Lucas six children ranging in ages from 10 years to 3 months who is Julia Haynes Julia Haynes is your great great grandmother right so his wife William's wife right okay it says here Mr Lucas himself was well known in SS spry so who is Mr Lucas Mr Lucas is your great great great grandfather so it's Julia's uh father exactly so they're trying to work out whether he should stump up the money for the family yes he's quite mean with his money Mr Lucas had The Misfortune to have a daughter who married a man who according to him was able to work but whose sight was certainly affected though not to such an extent he could not do something towards maintaining it it's a real shame it's it's quite a sad case well doesn't show my family in particularly good light but there you go so do we know what happened to my great great-grandfather William Haynes after this case well yes I have something more on William Haynes so what is this this is the census from 1891 William J Haynes oh he's a musician Ah that's rather lovely isn't it it must have become a musician right exactly and you might want to know where this is from Portsmouth who he's a blind musician from Portsmouth he's like the perfect Britain's Got Talent contestant he would win hands down well P it was well done thank you I'm impressed David's discovered that his great great grandfather William Haynes was a blind musician who was married to Julia Haynes and that along with six of their children including David's great-grandfather Alfred water haes they were living in Portsmouth I've come to Portsmouth find out more about my great great grandparents William and Julia Haynes sounds like life was really tough for them what with him being blinding them having six children interested to know that my great great-grandfather was a musician so an annoyance David is meeting historian Tony lington hi Tony who's been looking into William haynes's career as a musician what a beautiful day to be in P gorgeous now I know that my great great-grandfather William Haynes was here in 1891 he was a musician was he also an Entertainer an Entertainer yes and a musician of sorts I'm very intrigued of what you've got under there this is a barrel organ yes and he played this in the streets and in the docks here in Port he might also like lots of barrel organist might have had a little monkey with him a real monkey or a puppet monkey he would have been a real monkey in those days but not allowed them now but then you turn the handle and music comes out and there you are the battle organ see the monkey play they would carry on doing that and maybe even singing along to the people were entertained by this well absolutely aren't you jollys are our men we always are ready steady boys steady fight and we'll conquer again and again so there you go I love the lyrics have a little go well it looks very difficult but I I I I will have a go roll up everybody come and see my magnificent organ and meet my little monkey yes I don't think you go very far on Britain's Got Talent just just doing that yes I think so I think uh it's an age where people had a concern for social well welfare but there wasn't any kind of government scheme to provide for it so it would have been a a way of um people being able to feel that they were contributing to someone less fortunate than themselves and he was doing something and he was entertaining people it was often the case that someone in those situations would have another little attraction as well well to help kind of elicit a little bit more money and bearing that in mind there's a little article here in a newspaper so this is the Western Chronicle from Friday November the 27th 1896 charge against parents William and Julia Haynes my great great grandparents disced children act with sending two of their children Louisa and Walter so that's Alfred Walter Haynes he's about nine at this point okay so he's my great-grandfather on the street beat on a pretense of singing and playing for the purpose of begging and so in Victorian times you think of children doing lots of jobs but by this point 1896 it's become against the law to allow children to beg that's right I mean for for years uh children have been used for all sorts of activities that uh increasingly during the 19th century uh were frowned upon and people were concerned for the welfare of children um and one of those is the idea of begging and that one shouldn't use children for that purpose so they are itinerant performers they're people traveling from place to place I know it's also interesting because Alfred Walter Haynes my great-grandfather went on to run a Fairground so it's quite interesting so from such a young age he was sort of around sense of well traveling number one and also entertainment as well so it was obviously something it was in his in his mindset well you might like to have a little look here so this is the census of England and Wales 1911 so William Haynes he's now a traveling showman that's fantastic so he he went from being an organ grinder to being a they've moved on absolutely they've moved on now you can move on follow them on their Journey up to London well we've only just got to know each other my great great-grandfather and his family seemed like they were dirt poor I mean they they were traveling around he was blind he was begging on the streets not just that the children were involved in the begging too there something my granny never told me about certainly what I get from it is that William Haynes seems like a colorful character cuz one thing I really love is that on on the forms when he's asked to say you know what he does for a living he's a musician really he was just grinding an organ but it seems like maybe he was an optimistic kind of character on the trail of his great great grandfather and his family David's come to baty to meet historian jod Matthews so jod I found out that my great great-grandfather William Haynes was a traveling showman it sounds very exotic well you're right it is exciting certainly and we can see the sort of thing he was up to yeah so the year January the 6th 1900 Southampton anderton's managerie Simmons Switchback seab Baker steam yachts conell in haynes's Rifle saloons what are rifle saloons well you see something similar at fairs today where shooting galleries exactly yeah basically they were running Fairground wise that's right yeah and there's a and it says Mr Hay's roundabouts that's right so he's moved on from a shooting gallery and he's now got roundabouts that's right is that making him a traveling showman cuz I kind of think of Barnum when I traveling show right yeah it's a little bit different to that fairs are obviously a hugely important part of our cultural history and the person who has the ride is the showman and traveling around a circuit of fairs he's a traveling showman in the early 20th century fairs were a hugely popular entertainment with the move towards a 5-day working week and the introduction of summer holidays people had more Leisure Time and were looking for amusements the showman wrote so how would he have broken into this world because the last I heard of him he was grinding an organ uh begging in the street we don't know the detail but it's like that he saw that this was another form of entertainment and that this was a way of turning those skills he already had to a new audience he's amazing adapter to circumstances cuz he had so many different jobs and he's s going with the flow taking his family with him and we can see the kind of wagon that they were traveling around in I love it it's actually really romantic isn't it it's beautiful what an extraordinary lifestyle it is I had absolutely no idea that I in any way came from traveling people so I think my granny probably didn't like that idea actually to the kind of attitudes that the Haynes family were quite used to because at the time there were some quite negative views of people who traveled around Britain and you can see an example of that here actually so the Warminster and Westbury Journal Saturday November the 2nd 1907 round the fair with the manager by Observer it was a difficult matter to find a heading for the article I thought first of titling it how I saw the scum of the earth the scum of the Earth but feared that would hurt tender susceptibilities I may say in passing that this is written the day after I visited all their dwellings and I've detected no fleas on me yet so it's actually expect my great grandfather another roundabout proprietor who has been blind he told us since 1887 his show is looked after by his wife and family the same Natty little range the same overmantle the same burnished brass and polished steel the same neatness in order were visible everywhere that's quite interesting article isn't it I mean it starts off kind of really nasty actually and then um well it doesn't say anything negative about my great great grandfather it doesn't no but it's definitely a kind of a rather negative tone towards them as in and in terms of this expectation that there might be dirt at the van dwellings in Bur of battery from 1911 these Vans undergo frequent inspection by the council sanitary inspectors both by night as well as day so basically they're checking out these vs to check that the people are living in sanitary conditions and it's not overcrowding feels like they're really seen as other definitely so really sort of look down upon and and people are suspicious of them and their habits and yeah they feel they're a kind of threat but it's weird how these attitudes have persisted it is yeah was growing up there was always a sense you were told my members of my own family who come from this family family you know when you saw a caravan park or something like that you know people would make negative comments about it so situation of traveling the whole time they had a base where they kept the Vans and the rides uh in the offseason as it were and you can see what road man's yard was on Falcon Road that's right and this is the Falcon Pub we're on Falcon Road as well we are so man's yard is just around the corner and this is it this was 94 Falcon Road Manley's yard so this is where my great great-grandfather and his family lived and and is this maybe where my mom used to come where there was a fun fair at one time that's right this is the place I was really hoping there might still be a fun fair cuz I like fun fairs it has changed a bit but there is somewhere you can go at Jody's suggestion David's come to Maiden head Jody sent me to look at a yard where they keep old-fashioned Fairground rides but um really just looks like an industrialist State here we go carter steam Fair David's meeting Fairground historian Graham Dy hello David welcome to a Showman's yard wow I love this place yeah it's gorgeous isn't it yeah I love the old vehicles and all the rides that's a magnificent [ __ ] you've got there if you say the kindest things so so my great great-grandfather like this um transport Caravan an interesting and maybe exciting place to be did my great great grandfather make a good living oh I think so if you were to have a look at that yes January 1911 Mrs Julia R haes my great great grandmother 7 horsepower Road Loco compound two-speed showman engine so what is this traction engine steam Road locomotive it was used to haul the equipment about from Fair Fair wow like that what a beautiful beautiful Beast that engine is yes I read that my great-grandfather Alfred Haynes was an engine driver said this must be what he was driving that's right and this is a big purchase for the time right it's around 166,000 is big money and they possibly paid cash for it well looking at this it seems like the family is really going places what happened next ah no the Evening News Monday November the 24th 1913 blind showman buried so he died H salur man's romance over 30 years ago a young ssur man named William Haynes born of late had a misfortune to lose his eyesight he sought a livelihood in the direction so many similarly Afflicted persons do namely with a barrel organ by Dent of strenuous struggling he rose to be a traveling showman in a large way of business in the country and today that fraternity mours his loss I feel it's amazing isn't it You' you'd think you know having a disability 100 years ago would have really held you back in so many ways but I think he he had the great Fortune to have what seems to be a very energetic and dynamic wife who then carried on the business is that what she did and that's what she did and and 10 years later Southern traveler dead the late Mrs J Haynes the late Mrs J Haynes was widely known in the London and Southern counties and news of her death has been received with regret by a large circle of friends and there's a picture of her she looks rather magnificent there doesn't she look at that hat I know yeah and she looks like someone you wouldn't want to cross actually like that but um I'm not wearing it today unfortunately but no what a what an incredible character yes so what happened to the fair after my great great grandmother's St have a look at this so this is the Showman's yearbook 1933 and we have the hannes brothers right now they were your great-grandfather Alfred and his brother Albert so they stayed in the business yeah they were then permanently based at Falcon Road and they say a picture is worth a thousand words here is a picture I've found of the fair at Falcon Road wow so these are the dods my mom said that she wrote in the 1940s this is charming young boys sitting on the steps May well be your great uncles fantastic your grandmother Violet's Brothers yes well I met Uncle Fred and that Ashley does look like him there they look so proud as well they should be well yes this is this is our Affair yeah so do we know what happened to the fairground well we know that uh in 1951 your great-grandfather Alfred died by which time he was no longer involved in the fairground business and uh I suspect no other member of the family was my grandmother didn't carry on with the fair she actually worked for the race relations board I mean you couldn't be actually far enough away from this could you what a shame yes we lost the Showman tradition in my family don't need to show [Music] off I love my great great grandfather story it's a real story of resilience to lose your sight to then be working a barrel organ and go on to be a very celebrated showman I can't help but be proud of it and I couldn't be prouder of my great-grandfather John George wman he fought in the first world war but sadly he lost his sanity it's a really really sad story but I think they're both really inspiring people and I'm so glad their stories have been time [Music] still on cool down help me help me help me help help me thanks help [Music] me thanks help double [Applause] kill skill on cool down [Music] [Music] and the show [Music] guys