A TATTOED MAN

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12532, 18 April 1935, Page 3

A TATTOED MAN

CIRCTJS SIDE-SHOW WITH A PAST. Standing under the glare of are lights in a London circus sido-slknv stands a tall, military looking man, tattooed a dark bine from head to foot. 'Hundreds of curious sightseers have paid their sixpences to peer at him, the world’s tattooed wonder, ns he is called, but few have realised that in reality he is a former major in the British Army, and one of the romantic personalities of tho Great War. To-day he hides his Identity under tho name of the Great Omi. He is a former public school boy with a distinguished Army career. Faced with unemployment, decided to sacrifice h : s 'Social assets by becoming fatooed all over in order to privide a, decent living for his w r ife and himself. Throughout his ordeal—the tattooing look three and half years—• his wife has stood by comforting him the while she dressed the painful wounds left by the tattooeist’s needle. Now his ordeal is over she sits with him in the side-show pit at Olympia, acting as his secretary and manager. “No other mail would have had the patience and courage to endure tho pain he has gone through, both mental and physical,” she told tho “Sunday Chronicle” recently. “He was a- good-looking man. before the tattooing and, in my opinion, is now even better looking. “Once during tho process he was blind '.for seversb days, but he bote it like a bero. I bad to feed Lira on a special diet.” Among his circus colleagues, the Great Omi is known as “The Blue Major,” but even those who are in the same pit do not know his identity. He keeps it secret because of his family name and the fact that he doesn’t want his former friends to know. • “Alter leaving a public -school I took a commission in the Army, from which I res : gned just before the war,” he said, “In 1914 I joined up again as a trooper in a cavalry regiment. “I served in France and later became a major in a well-known cavalry regiment. “When I left the A r mv I found that I was not equipped for civilian life. “Life on an office stool did not appeal to me after adventures in tho jungles and desert. “Nobody had any work for me. The slump was on, and I decided to do something that nobody had ever done before. “The idea .of becoming tattooed over seemed original, and after giving the matter very careful consideration T' decided upon action. “Sometimes I fbJjt I could not go on with it. “My wife has been wonderful. “Now I am determined to make' good afi a circus star, and my wife is doing everything she can to help me in this direction.”