BILL BATES

My mothers name was Brenda Gallagovich, a beautiful women of East European decent. She was a part Polish, part Russian, part Ukraine and part Latvian, depending on what ship had been visiting the port at the time. Mum moved from Poland to England at the age of 17 and arrived in the town of Leamington Spa to join the touring Moscow State Circus who were permanently based in the town. Mums stage name was Bolshevik Brenda and her act consisted of crawling around the circus floor with a woolly fleece on her back while the Circus Master declared that she was literally a "Half Women & Half Sheep". Crude as it sounds in today's cable television, multi-channel digital world, mums act became very popular and she became quite a celebrity. Mum was often in the national press and was photographed with the celebrities of the day including famous footballers, film stars and politicians. She was destined for stardom if it wasn't for her being caught in bed with the then Head of the Ministry of Defence surrounded by national secrets.

Colin when performing as Colin the Comb (the human bee hive). He was rushed to hospital after having this photo taken with multiple stings to the head.

After dads accident he changed his name from Colin Cramer the Lion Tamer to Colin Peace and his Amazing Killer Geese. Basically the act consisted of releasing these specially bred "killer geese" from their cages and the infamous cowboy gunslinger known as Sure Shot Shaun the Shoreham Sharpshooter shot them before they could attack members of the audience. Unfortunately, one of the geese escaped and ran into the audience, causing havoc. Sure Shot Shaun the Shoreham Sharp Shooter began shooting but instead of killing the geese he killed a visiting member of the Russian Royal Family and three members of the audience. All charges were dropped after the Public Inquiry and Police investigation but dads life long friend and sleeping partner Sure Shot Shaun found it difficult to find work. Dad changed his act to Colin Figs and his Death Defying Pigs but for some reason this failed to bring him fame and fortune. Dad did get his name in the newspapers a year later when he was arrested and imprisoned for taking photographs of various British RAF bases at a particularly sensitive time in the Cold War.

Dad and his geese befor Sure Shot Shaun shot them

This is a poster advertising my dads circus act "Colin and has amazing killer Geese" The act didn't catch on.

After his prison escape dad married the only women he had ever loved. After one month she left without explanation and so, in desperation, he moved in with Brenda who had a larger than normal trailer and needed someone to share her life with. Three weeks later Brenda announced that she was pregnant and although dad suspected that the baby couldn’t have been his, he agreed to stand by his pregnant girlfriend. Little did he know at the time, but mum had been selling her body to a local test tube baby research clinic to earn extra cash. Mum had become pregnant as a result of these early test tube baby experiments. Amazingly, I discovered many years later, that dad was in fact donating his sperm to the very same clinic! Chances are that mum and dad really were mum and dad after all.

Nine months after mum had been impregnated in the clinic I was born - one of the first successful test tube babies in the UK. It was a happy time for all the family with dad being marginally successful with an act called "Colin the Cosmonaut". His performance consisted of him being fired from a rocket to land in a net on the other side of the circus tent while dressed in a Russian space suit (it was the time of the space race and the Russians had put the first man into space). Unfortunately the act finished because it had been difficult to measure the exact flight path Colin had to travel through the air and so there had been numerous accidents resulting in a broken arm, a fractured wrist, two broken ribs and a damaged collar bone. Dad was therefore home and in traction throughout most of my early years resulting in a strong bond between us.

Dads camper van - with hidden missile launcher

Dads camper van, which was actually a mobile Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launcher.

Many years later dad admitted that his van (above) was in fact a genuine mobile Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launcher, and not a camper van at all. He had converted it to make it look like a 1926 Volvo Camper Van complete with kitchenette. The van was one of the first to have a "pull down dining table" which is common these days but it was a new feature at the time. Dads van did not have any heating for fear of exploding the missiles which had been carefully hidden under the beds. I can still remember the cold winters nights and wondering why our calor gas fire always seemed to have an empty gas bottle. The van is now in the KGB Moscow automotive museum.

It wasn't that long ago that I discovered that MI5 had in fact been following dad for years. He was in fact Boris Muscowski a famous Russian spy who was in the UK to recruit a number of circus performers into the KGB in the event of a war between the East and the West. The "accidents" that Colin was having were in fact arranged by an MI5 dirty tricks team of KGB archives)

Sure Shot Shaun the Shoreham Sharp Shooter. This photo was taken after shooting one of the Russian Royal family by mistake. Shaun is now a sound engineer.

I have discovered that my Great Granddad, Corporal Arthur Bates, was a musician and performed various concerts to soldiers in the First World War. He too was a sort of comedy folk singer songwriter and entertained the troops with his own witty songs of which I have found "78's" copies in my loft.*

* (for younger readers, 78's came before 45's which came before tapes which were before minidisks which were before CD's which were before ipods and MP3's.)

His songs include "Hey Tommy, that's a big gun in your hand", and "Is that a 5 pounder shell in your trousers or are you just pleased to see me" and "Johnny get your rifle you've pulled" which are all of a similar theme.

One of his concert tours was in France at the time of the battle of the Somme, where he heroically sung his songs to soldiers in the trenches. His make shift P.A. system was rigged up to be louder than the incoming bombs, which was supposed to take the tedium away from being shelled at.

According to his diary the Germans deliberately shelled him up and down the line whenever he was performing. Apparently one German General complained to the Allied top brass that it was wrong to have him singing songs because it was an a form of torture banned according to the codes of the Geneva convention.

Great-Granddad swore that his own artillery shelled him on more than one occasion.

He admitted in his diary that he was a rubbish singer and troops often went away from his concerts more depressed, which was quite an achievement considering the squalor in the trenches in the battle of the Somme. He said those soldiers from his own side often threw things at him while on stage, including the odd live grenade.

Great-Granddad volunteered to join up in 1914 but was never cut out to be a soldier. One problem was that his right leg was much shorter than his left, which made marching particularly difficult, unless the route had a slight right hand curve. He caused ciaos on the parade ground and in route-marches he often ended up miles (to the right) from where he was supposed to be heading.

He was willing though and the top brass had to keep him in the army despite his difficulties. They then began to send him out on various suicide missions but, as luck would have it, he kept returning, often as the lone survivor. In 1917 he was captured and held in Stulag XXI where he started his own Folk Club that was based on an open mike night (without the mike).

The club was not a success and the only regular visitors were those who were drove mad by the gas and 2 French soldiers who had gone deaf because of the shelling. He escaped one Sunday afternoon in broad day light when the Germans left the gates open and he walked back to his lines without a shot being fired.

Great-Granddad was eventually allowed to leave the army when a tank went out of control in the middle of a concert for veteran soldiers and almost ran him over. Despite having 120 men at the concert there were no witnesses to the event.

Great Granddad eventually agreed never again to sing in public as part of the deal.

I have found what appears to be an American connection in my family.

In 1904, my Great, Great, Great Uncle Jethro left England, and went to live in Boston in America. At the age of 22 he joined the US navy where he served as a naval officer on the Battleship USS Omigod.

He never actually had any naval experience and travelled to the US, stowing abroad a Merchant Navy ship. On arrival on shore, he broke into a laundry and stole a naval uniform where he passed himself off as a First Mate to gain what he thought would be free food and lodgings at the local naval academy. His plan was to keep himself to himself for a few weeks before moving on.

Naval records showed that within an hour of arriving at the academy war had been announced between America and the small South American country of Hondurans and he was immediately dispatched to war as third in command onboard the battleship SS Invader.

After two days at sea Jethro on the bridge and began ordering the staff on the bridge to speed things up. He wanted to get to Hondurans as quickly as possible and to get home and get on with his life.

The Battleship SS Invader was a new ship, only just coming out of the dock yard 2 weeks previously. The ships engines were brand new and, just like a car, the engines needed to be run in for the first 10,000 miles.

Despite warnings from the ships engineers, Jethro pushed the ship too hard. An hour into the journey the ships engines blew up and the ship eventually sank.

The battleship SS Invader

Because of the sensitivity of the situation, the US navy decided that they would blame the Hondurans navy for sinking the Battleship and promptly invaded the county. (nothing new there then).

Jethro was then promoted and many years later become Admiral Jethro Bates head of the US Navy.

Many years later Jethro was asked to retire from the navy after loosing the whole fleet while parked up in a small island called Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

Sir Thomas Bates (Colonel retired) and Simon "Blaster" Bates MM, DSO, MBE. DCM....