Peter Ford

“So far as the facts in the case are concerned, Dr Howell and I had called our book a ‘true’ history.”
― Peter Ford, The True History of the Elephant Man: The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick

“One exhibition to which Tom Norman became particularly attached was his family of midgets. It consisted of two midgets, billed as man and wife and always brought into town in a specially constructed miniature coach drawn by ponies. In each town on the tour he made a point of closing the show down for a few days so as to allow the lady midget to ‘give birth to her baby’. A new-born infant would then be hired to stand in for the hypothetical offspring, and even larger queues always gathered after such a ‘happy event’ to see the new arrival. The only problem was the difficulty he had in restraining the ‘mother’ from swearing volubly, smoking a pipe and drinking gin in front of the customers. The exhibition finally came to grief when the ‘mother’ ran away one night, objecting to being displayed as a woman any longer, both midgets being men.”
― Peter Ford, The True History of the Elephant Man: The Definitive Account of the Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Joseph Carey Merrick