THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Waltzer Jack’s arrival each summer was a cause of great excitement.  He had jet-black hair and a sun-charred chest, and exuded the kind of sultry exoticism that the local boys could never hope to match.  He spun waltzers full of teenage girls who were bathed in Anaïs-Anaïs and squeezed into crop-tops two sizes too small.  He took on all-comers round the back of the caravans in bare-knuckle brawls that strayed long after sunset.  We lost count of the number of girls who ran away with the fair.  They would re-appear two weeks later in the same clothes they had eloped in, crumpled and vacant, dreamily conceding that the wandering life was not for them.

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