David Id and Alison Gourney interviewed by Liz Lavender
'Can you remember how much your caravan cost back then' Liz
"No there were all vans, vans that were kitted out" Alison
'so what vehicle were you in' Liz
"We might have had a car and a tent and things, its surprising how vague I am about all this really" David
"To start with it was those yellow post office vans wasn't it they were the first vans we had as Balls Up so" Alison
"did they tour with John Paul" David
"Stiltsey had one" Alison
"did they tour with John Paul?" David
"No, I don't know" Alison
"I don't think so" David
"They were destined for Idi Armin, but never got there!" David
'Were they, tells us the story about that' Liz
"We always called them BT telecom vans, but I think Idi Armin of Uganda had ordered them but because politics being what they are and him being the dictator that he was, they never got sent, so then they were auctioned off cheap. I wasn't involved in the buying of them or anything like that, so they were presumably modified to go off to Uganda" David
'And instead they went off to Deal!' Liz
"It wasn't, it wasn't a yellow one that was in Deal, it was a white one, it was your one, that was a white one" Alison
"Well it wasn't mine, the first Devicco was a white one" David
"quite a long one" Alison
"yeah well we got two of the Devicco's which got converted into rough and ready camper vans, time of the convoy and things like that" David
"No, I know what happened to the first yellow van, which were the one that was Pete and Tom's, it got burned in, in Benidorm" Alison
"how could you forget that?" David
'Were you there, did you go down to Benidorm?' Liz
"Yeah we were. We travelled down, we met them up there, we went in David's beetle so it was me, David and Tom in David's Beetle and we had parked up behind their van and went off to do a juggling show," Alison
"a fire show" David
"no we went back to get the fire stuff" Alison
"That's it" David
'And this was a kind of busking thing was it?' Liz
"Yeah just to," Alison
"we had to" David
"well we were on our way" Alison
"had to earn out diesal as we went" David
"the juggling convention in Spain I think that year" Alison
"yes"
"then we went back to collect the fire equipment and discovered the van that was on fire itself!" Alison
"We think it was the Benidorm Liberation Front setting fire to a few camper vans, who'd been setting fire to a few camper vans" David
"that were obviously British" Alison
"'cause they didn't like the fact that Benidorm was like an outpost of the worst of Britain" David
"so it was lucky that we had the car and" Alison
"so they wanted to reclaim it for Spain" David
"we had some other transport" Alison
'-the Beetle, for how many people?!' Liz
"well, !, I think the insurance paid for, some people got flights and flew down or flew back, not sure exactly what happened" Alison
"It's a whole story in itself, living out in the street outside the burnt out truck with, you know, silly things survived the fire, like a parking ticket whereas passports didn't, things like that, um,
generosity of people in the flats that overlooked us, taking the insurance claim forms to the police station, police complaining that they were dirty, we said 'well we're living with burnt out belongings on the street', you know, it's ridiculous, so there was lots of stupid, you had to see the comedy of it all as well, um, a few people had insurance which put us up in a hotel, we managed to sneak everyone else in, I think only two people had travel insurance, all a little different in those days, and I went off to Malaga and blagged £100 off my Uncle, 'cause fortunately we still had transport with the car" David
'so where did the £100 get you, to the juggling convention or back home' Liz
"Yeah just to buy some, um, dunno, still wasn't that much money, it bought some food and fuel, shared around to help everybody but um yeah, 'cause Malaga was just up the road" David
'but that didn't dampen your enthusiasm for . .' Liz
"Not really, it was a bit of surprise, bit of a shock, bit of a disaster" David
'so you continued or you went.. 'Liz
"No we got to the juggling convention which Toby had organised in Castean which was this old hill fort" David
"Beautiful place"
"that Franco had wanted to turn into one of his summer villas so he moved all the people, all the residents but he never, he never, there was a civil war, so thats how the story goes, then the fort got taken over by hippies and travelers and stuff, Toby organised this amazing juggling convention there Castela de la Frontier" David
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| Juggling convention in Casta dela Frontier |
"All magic and stuff, I remember juggling by moonlight, moon shadows and a great public show, lots of fantastic people there, the butterfly man was one of them, bit of a legend, had a tattoo of a butterfly"
'not heard of the butterfly person, can you ..' Liz
"Toby'd know an awful lot more about him, he just did a pretty anarchic act, he'd hit kids with foam bats or those float things but in a funny way, it was all very funny" David
'Can you remember being inspired, people think street art and juggling was a little bit more advanced in Europe, can you remember what your opinion was when you first went there' Liz
"There was always room for seeing new things, if we'd been able to hang around Barcelona, before people just stood as human statues, you'd have seen people, the butterfly man was from the States,
people like Kevin Brooking was a big part of all that" David
"I guess we just had a great enthusim, so when we saw people to doing fantastic original clowning
we'd think, wow that's the stuff we liked, and that's the sort of stuff we'd aspire to achieve ourselves, um, or fantas - amazing skills, blown away by diablo, or this german guy written in a book, 130 three ball tricks, but his juggling was just mesmeric." David
'So you'd progress at this point from three balls to five clubs?' Liz
"Yeah" Alison
"We might have aspired to it, people like Mickey B, we looked up to these people, who had all these fantastic skills. I don't think we ever thought we had enough dedication to practice as much as some people, so I think we relied more on comedy as a way of compensating for the fact we didn't practice 10 hours a day"
"I remember at the Spanish juggling convention, because it was all outdoors of praticing a lot,
particularly diablo and clubs the conventions good for all that" David
"beautiful weather" Alison
"we were always, we were all new on the scene, we were in awe or respect of people who had been doing it longer and better" david
"people were happy to share their skills, I think meals mess was one, person who invented it showed us how to do it" Alison
"Don't think I ever met the person who invented it"
'I think it was all about sharing then' Liz
"wasn't much ego, there was a little bit, but a bit of sharing" David
"weren't precious about what they knew, people were happy to share" Alison
"gosh I'm stuffed to the brim" Alison
"I'm full"
"all good times we didn't really take things too seriously, we were just enjoying ourselves
and finding a way to live, for me it's always felt like living outside the rat race, stems from the politics, really of wanting to find a way, having good times with friends a good life, not pandering to the system so I think, politics, juggling was a great way of doing it, interesting how the circus has come out of that" David
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