Come on, sir, follow me down! Step this way, madam! Only a shilling, gentlemen, to the most amazing freak of nature you will ever see!
These cries used to echo round Bartholomew's Fair, a hugely popular 18th-century carnival site in the East End of London. The fair was always packed and it attracted all sorts of showmen including jugglers, acrobats and tumblers.
Nothing was too odd or outlandish to be on show. One of the biggest attractions was the monster shows, where poor people with genetic defects were displayed for the general public to gawp at.
You could see all sorts of 'freaks' from the smallest child in the world to the gorilla woman or the bendy man. It seems very inhuman today, but the monsters of Bartholomew's Fair were once a source of great entertainment in London.
Julie Hearn's wonderful new novel, Follow Me Down, is the breathtaking story of a modern teenager who gets mixed up with the freak shows and grave diggers of 18th-century London. It's a genuinely original novel that holds your attention with its imaginative plot and authentic characters.
Tom is not having an easy time. His mum is recovering from cancer and he has no one to turn to for help for emotional support. Tom and his mum move to London to stay with his gran, but as soon as he arrives, odd things begin to happen.
He begins to hear voices calling to him for help. In the cellar Tom finds a gap in the floor and he discovers that if he steps over the divide he can go back in time and finds himself in the 18th century in the middle of Bartholomew's Fair. A group of unfortunate creatures, a deformed child, the bendy man and the gorilla woman beg Tom for help.