ROLL UP, ROLL UP... FOR THE SHOWMAN DETECTIVE

William Hussey has drawn on his childhood living in a fairground family to create the most unique fictional cop for years in Scott Jericho. He reveals the Sliding Doors moment that led him to writing, his near-death experience and why he makes librarians wince

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Hussey’s family go back at least 200 years in fairground circles, latterly taking their rides around London and the South East as part of the Home Counties circuit of The Showman’s Guild of Great Britain, before settling in Skegness with a permanent seaside attraction.

His great-grandfather, John, is said to have invented the game hook-a-duck. And Hussey’s father, Bill, known ironically as “Bodge” because he could fix anything, once built an entire carousel from scratch.

His mother Marilyn was not from the travelling community and her father, Len, who worked for the Gas Board, helped instil a love of adventure in Hussey and his two sisters.

“We would stay with my granddad quite a lot in the summer and he would take us to London for the day. He was a lovely man and, whenever we showed a passion for anything, he would invest in it.

“He took me down to Devon, to Agatha Christie’s house Greenway. I was a Sherlock Holmes fan when I was young through reading The Hound of the Baskervilles. We went on the Sherlock Holmes walk when I was 11 and I got chucked off it because I kept correcting the tour guide!”

A voracious reader who used to steal library books “Librarians are horrified when I tell them, but we weren’t allowed borrowing cards, thankfully that’s changed now” he suspected a showman might make a good detective.

“It was down to three elements,” he explains today. “First, observation; they weigh up their punters very quickly because they have a limited amount of time each night in which to earn their trade. They’re very good at knowing whether someone’s ready to spend.

“Secondly, fairgrounds are one of the last great levellers everyone comes to the fair, from bin men to lords, you meet them all.

“And finally, it’s that ability to win people’s trust. A showman makes five new friends before he leaves the pub.