JUST WHAT MAKES A CLOWN CRY?

You might say he’s lonely, shy and hiding behind the make-up…or you might say he’s a lost soul in the fast moving world of high powered technical entertainment ‘as seen on TV’. There may be many other reasons why clowns have traditionally been seen as rather sad characters.

But what makes me cry is seeing people become absolutely captivated and besides themselves with joy and pure happiness. I’ve spent a great part of my life learning how to make people laugh and hopefully a lot of those people will retain a lasting memory of the time they saw a silly old clown falling down a lot and making a real fool of himself.

In 2004, I was commissioned by a group of well meaning individuals and companies to perform a short tour of shows for the children of Burmese migrant workers in the north of Thailand.

With the help of my long time saxophonist friend, David from Scotland…we organized six shows which took place in some of the poorest migrant families schools in and around the Mae Sot region of Thailand.

Some of the schools we visited provide a completely free service and are open to children of any religion or ethnic group. They drive to collect the children free of charge from the surrounding area. They also feed them and in some cases pay for medical care. The other schools have to charge a low fee which allows them to provide the children with a basic education and some protection from being sent to work or having to scrape a living from begging.

I think It’s important to point out that the parents, dedicated teachers and careers…however difficult their circumstances, see the value of education for the children and somehow manage to find a way of giving them some schooling despite the lack of any real resources. I applaud the commitment of the staff who work in such circumstances for very little reward.

Many of the families and orphaned or abandoned children are surviving without much in the way of handouts. Some of them are forced to try and make a sort of living by scavenging on the local rubbish dumps or turning to even worse ways of surviving. While others try to make a living doing hard manual work for much less than the official minimum wage. Therefore it can be very hard for these families to afford even the most modest school fees.

The story of the migrant people around the Thai Burmese border is well known and I’m not in the business of making political comments about this situation. But I am in the business of trying my best to help bring a little much needed laughter and joy into the lives these people living in extremely unfortunate circumstances.

I hired a minibus and driver to take me from Bangkok and filled it with lots of toys, clothes and school equipment to hand out at each school. Those donations were put together in the space of just two weeks by my friends, their children, some company employees and a wonderful group of British ladies in Bangkok. THAT’S THE BRAND OF KINDNESS THAT BRINGS ME CLOSE TO TEARS!

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