'Grab chances and squeeze' (From Stroud News and Journal)

'Grab chances and squeeze'

HE has been bashed by battle-axes, slashed by swords and hoofed by horses.

He narrowly avoided an industrial accident which killed one man and maimed another and he had a heart attack on the football field aged just 36.

But whether he has more lives than a cat or just a generous dose of the luck of the Irish, Stroud's Gary Gallagher has bounced back from all the knocks and scrapes fate has thrown at him and exudes an infectious lust for life.

Chief reporter Sam Bond talks to builder-cum-actor about times old and new.

Gary Gallagher has got to be the ultimate Jack-of-all-trades. Since leaving his home town Dublin 20 years ago he's been a brickie and a barman, a stuntman and a stage actor, a circus entertainer and a footballer.

He has dodged death time and again and squeezes every last drop out of life. Since leaving his parents' pub in the Celtic capital he has followed a long and winding road to happiness in Stroud.

"I grew up in Dublin where I trained as a bricklayer and served my apprenticeship in Ireland," he said.

"I left a week after I'd finished and headed for the big lights of London like all the other Paddies.

"It was very strange moving out of your mam's house and going to work in a city that you don't really know the first thing about.

"Even though you're speaking the same language it's a totally different culture and very alien.

"Although I'd grown up in a city it had been the suburbs and I'd known everyone, so London was a bit of a culture shock."

Gary did the obligatory stint in London but soon realised it was not the place for him. "It was fun for a while but it got tedious just going out and playing up all the time," he said.

"I don't miss any of it, I've been back probably twice and it just reaffirms the fact that leaving was the best thing I ever did."

While daily life in the Big Smoke had become a grind, there was a terrible accident that put Gary off working on the anonymous building sites where blacks and the Irish were poorly treated.

"There was an accident where a guy was killed and by rights it should have been me but I didn't go into work that day." he said.

"There was a father and son working in a trench and the wall collapsed, killing the father and messing the son up big time.

"They only reason they were in there was because I didn't turn up." Gary struggled to come to terms with the accident but in the end had to accept that what will be, will be.

"It was a big relief combined with huge guilt," he said. "It came down to the fact that it was something that was out of my hands. "It sounds callous, but it that's the way the cards fell.

"I don't believe in any of it but I suppose it was fate or karma or God or your guardian angel. "It just wasn't my time."

He said the accident was the last straw and soon afterwards he packed his bags and left the city. "It epitomised the whole attitude of London," he said.

"I'd told them the day before that trench was dodgy but it was 'get back in that hole and get it sorted, you thick Mick'". His travels took him to The Potteries.

"I moved up to Stafford for about 18 months, worked in a pub and went self employed," he said.

"I had to grow up fast then, I was miles away from my mam, my mates and my home and had to stand on my own two feet. "I met some absolutely cracking people there including this fella Ade Powell.

"He taught me there was a whole lot more to life than work and playing up." Ade introduced Gary to the world of hang-gliding, jousting and stunt riding.

"Ade used to joust for England and I ended up in a group called the Devil's Horsemen with him," he said. Later on they toured with Circus Starr, travelling the length and breadth of the country.

"I was terrified of horses when I started. "I got stood on by one as a kid and I'd been scared of them ever since.

"All the lads used to ride and they would take the Mickey down the pub and one of them told me he'd teach me.

"For some reason I was a natural stood up on the back of two Welsh ponies. "I'd only been on a horse about half a dozen times before that.

"I was just too stupid to have any fear because I'd never fallen off." that was soon to change as Gary took knock after knock touring with the horsemen.

They did Westerns, medieval shows, re-enactments of historic battles like Hastings and out-and-out melees with an assortment of weaponry.

"We used to do a little and large show with me on a Shetland pony and a big fella on a cart horse," he said.

"But what I most enjoyed was the knight stuff. "We used to have sword and axe fights - it was brilliant fun.

"That said, I used to be in hospital every two weeks getting stitched up or strapped up from all the accidents.

"It was all staged and planned professionally, but working on slippery ground with horses that are never completely predictable these things were bound to happen now and then.

"It was great fun but looking back on it I shouldn't have done any of it." "I've been bounced about so many times and I'm starting to pay for it now. "I've got a broken nose, lost loads of teeth and I'm covered in scars."

Despite being bashed about more than might be sensible, Gary has great memories of his wild times. "It was living a boyhood dream," he said.

"When I was a little kid at school everyone else wanted to be movie stars but I always wanted to be a stuntman.

"I achieved my ambition and everything else is a bonus." But by the time the tour was over Gary had had enough.

"The money was terrible and I had nowhere to go so I came down to Cheltenham to share a house with Toti Gifford (of Gifford's Circus fame)," said Gary.

"He was doing groundwork back then and nothing to do with circus, it's just one of those coincidences, I can't claim any credit for getting him into the circus - that was his wife Nell's doing.

After a year on the road Gary enjoyed the stability of the settled life in Cheltenham and made good friends in the town.

After a while he returned to Dublin but it was not the city, or the life, he remembered.

"That was very, very strange," he said. "I'd been away five years and people have this really weird concept.

"They'd all changed physically, mentally and emotionally but they all expected me to be exactly the same as when I had left.

"It was hard getting people to realise you're not the same person." He only lasted nine months before heading back across the Irish Sea.

"I went to visit Toti and the rest of the lads in Cheltenham and he had about 15,000 bricks that needed laying and nobody to lay them so I said I'd help him out and never got round to going back to Dublin when I'd finished," he said.

"I rented a house in Stroud and forgot to leave. "That was over 12 years ago."

Outside his extensive circles of friends Gary is probably best known in Stroud for his acting and footballing.

He played a doorman, giggling girl and drunken lad in the runaway hit Bouncers and psycho Wayne Hudson in Popcorn this year.

He talked about the humble beginnings of Stroud's hip am dram group Dead Ernest Theatre Company. "It all started as a laugh and a bit of a joke and it got out of hand," he said.

"Myself and five mates drunkenly decided we were going to try to raise a few quid for charity and we put on a panto down the Vic in Gloucester Street. "That's where it started and a year later we did another one.

"After that we thought we'd try to do something serious and took on Bouncers. "We couldn't have picked a better play for the four of us, with the type of blokes we are and how we look.

"All our mates came to watch us fluff it up and make total idiots of ourselves and went home amazed that we'd pulled it off. "You had to be slightly schizophrenic to be in that play.

"One moment you're growling at people and threatening to rip their heads off and two seconds later you've got a handbag and you're crying because your boyfriend has run off with somebody else.

"It was challenging but the buzz of being on that stage for the first time and people actually liking what we were doing was amazing."

The play was an incredible success with wave reviews and huge public popularity. "It'll never beat that freshness again for me," said Gary.

"We made a rod for our own backs by being popular and now because of the talent we are getting auditioning for productions it's getting hard to justify giving any of us roles.

"But as a theatre group it's absolutely great that it's improving and getting more professional."

Gary's football team, Vic Celtic, is a similar success story, an up and coming side that has been undefeated this season.

"We've become victims of our own success," he said. "We'll have to find something that doesn't turn out to be really good, something that stay mediocre."

Last year Gary combined drama and football when he had a heart attack on the football pitch.

"I'd been out for a curry the night before and I thought 'something's not right here'," he said.

"The next thing I know I'm on my way to hospital and they're telling me I'd had a heart attack.

"I was fortunate in that it was a baby heart attack and if you're going to have one, that's the kind to have.

"It's made me give up smoking and given me more respect for my body and luckily my doctor's told me I can carry on doing everything I was doing before, except the smoking.

"I had to recover for a couple of weeks then I was back out playing football and my lung capacity is much better now than it was before, so you could say the heart attack improved my level of fitness."

Now happily married and ensconced in Stroud life Gary has no plans to leave his adopted town.

"I'll be staying put now," he said. "I'm married, I've got my business and I've made some really good friends.

"When I was with the circus, a young fella and single I went to a whole lot of places in England and Ireland and Stroud is one of the most amicable places I've been where you're just left alone to do what you want to do."

While he looks forward to the future he has no master plan to guide him through life. "I try not to make plans," he said.

"If you don't make plans you can't be disappointed but when an opportunity arises, grab it and squeeze it with both hands."