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I dipped into Le Enchanteur’s box of chocolates and I pulled out – my thumb. I remembered promising Lori that I would tell the story of my shot thumb. So here, out of the chocolate box of childhood memories is a tale you may think is highly unlikely, but is in fact quite true – any circus performer and traveller could tell you even weirder stuff…

How I Got Shot in the Thumb is one of those stories that gets trotted out every now and then. The kids used to love hearing it, and whenever they made too much fuss about something trivia, I would give them the Thumbs Up. Litanies of injury would come to abrupt halt with the words, “Of course, there was the time Mum got shot…”

As many Foodies know, I grew up as a traveller, and my parents were circus performers. My father was a sharpshooter and my mother his human target – and as circus kids do, when I was old enough I joined the act.

There were a few accidents but never with the guns until one Friday in Scotland in 1960, during the second house. I was standing at the target board, holding one of the small plaster disks by its matchstick handle between my finger and thumb. It was one of the simplest parts of the act – Dad shattered the disc with a bullet and the most I had to worry about was being stung by a bit of flying plaster. Except that, this time, it felt more as if my thumb had been hit with a large, dull hammer. I stared at it in surprise. There was blood pouring out.

One of the bullets had only half the charge, and dropped as it was fired, enough distance to go clean through my thumb and into the target board. I was hurried back to the bus where Dad examined my thumb. There was a small neat hole near the nail, where the bullet had entered. The back of my thumb was a bloody, ragged mess.
One of the locals gave us the address of the local doctor and I set off with Dad, both of us with coats thrown on over our costumes.

We found the doctor’s house, after a fair walk, and knocked on the door. The Doctor’s wife opened it and stared at us as if we were a couple of escaped lunatics.

“We’re from the circus,” Dad explained. “My daughter has had an accident.”

Seeing my hand, and the blood soaked cloth it was wrapped in, the woman ushered us inside and called for the doctor. He turned out to be lovely old man with a white moustache and a manner to charm the most stubborn of patients into submission. My hand was beginning to throb by now, and I wasn’t too keen on having the cloth removed. It had stuck to the wound, and we had to soak it off. Once my thumb was in the open he examined it with interest. Then he looked at me.
“I think the young lady should have a cup of tea,” he said. “About six sugars should do the trick.”

As he cleaned up my wound he listened to Dad’s tales of our life on the road. From his manner, you would think he treated Indian squaws for gunshot wounds every day. His wife, now past her first shock, was just as charming. She brought the tea, with a couple of biscuits, and joined in the conversation while the doctor expertly bandaged my thumb.

“I think there’s not much point in stitches,” he said, “since the bullet has blown out the tissue at the back. The best thing you can do is keep it clean, soak it in saline solution every night, and let the tissue rebuild itself. Come back tomorrow and I’ll have another look at it and change the dressing.”

We stayed for another cup of tea, long enough for the doctor to make sure I was recovered from shock – which explained the very sugary tea I had been given – and arrived back at the circus in time for the evening show. I had to hold the disc in the other hand, but I was thankful – Mum’s part of the act meant she had to hold the disc on her head, so if a bullet had to drop two inches, it was best that it dropped into my thumb.

I visited the doctor twice again before we left Beith and he was well pleased with the progress I was making. As he had said, the back of my thumb was in too much of a mess for stitches, but with repeated soakings and clean dressing, it began to heal over, though it left a permanent scar that has considerably faded now.

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