funfair life Archives

Event Planning, Fun Story, funfair events

Wild West And The Golden Age Of The Fairground

15 February 2023

The mainstay of the modern fairground are the thrill rides. Higher, faster, more daring, with bright lights and loud music. But if we harken back to a simpler time, the main attractions were the shows. Wild West displays of shooting prowess, giants, strange animals, boxing booths. In the pre television and internet days, many peoples first glimpse of cinema was at a fairground. The trade organisation the Showmen’s Guild used to have a rule that a certain percentage of a fairground had to be reserved for sideshows. In my native North East, the popular local term for a funfair is ‘The Shows’.

Wild West

Some of the most popular were the Wild West shows, trick lassoo work, even fancier shooting, with live bullets, none of this modern day cork shooting nonsense. Though the fairground industry still has an exemption from firearms certificates for guns upto 0.23 calibre. And there is at least one example of a live round shooting gallery that I know of attending funfairs.

Florence Shufflebottom Sharpshooter with glamour — **Shufflebottoms Wild West Show**. **Or As They Styled Themselves, The Colarado’s**

Florence Sharpshooting — **Shufflebottoms Wild West Show**. **Or As They Styled Themselves, The Colarado’s**

This was one of the most popular, in part due to the lady doing the shooting. Florence was not only talented but glamorous to boot. I knew her into her advanced years and at 70 she was still a stunning woman. Her son married my Mothers sister so we are family.

George The Gentle Giant

Another family connection with this one. An uncle from Scotland had found George and gave him a job in this show. George was one of the nicest men you could ever meet. I remember being a kid and at that age he looked like a true giant out of the books. He always had a smile and would say hello, but in his broad accent I could never understand a bloody word he said, so I would just nod. The picture of George shaking a ladies hand was one of the souvenirs you could buy from the show and George would sign it. The lady pictured is my mother. One set of photos actually had George stood holding a kid on each arm, I was one of the kids, but I can’t find a photo at the minute.

George the Giant with my mum — **George The Gentle Giant. Scotland’s Tallest Man**

Boxing Booth

Another long time favourite in the old days was the boxing booth. One of the best loved was Ron Taylors. I can remember Ron, a really small guy who was lovely. Ron’s family had started a bare knuckle boxing booth in Wales in 1861. Only providing their competitors with gloves when it became compulsory in the 1930’s.

At the peak of the popularity there were around 100 boxing booths in the UK. I think Taylors was the last of them. He would recruit professional boxers as his champions, and if a local lad could last 3 rounds with him, he would receive a cash prize. Few remained on their feet to collect.

Ron once had the great Mohammed Ali give an exhibition performance for charity. The two became friends and the Champ invited Ron to his wedding blessing.

At Durham Miners Gala one year, where they was always a rough bunch, a drunken miner staggered up the steps of the booth and headbutted the large brass bell that Ron used to ring to attract attention. Trouble was said brass bell had a razor sharp edge. There was blood everywhere, they took him away in an ambulance.

Ron Taylor's boxing booth — **The Great Ron Taylor**

Muhammed Ali appearing at Taylor's boxing booth — **The Great Ron Taylor**

Freak Animals Show

Probably something that wouldn’t get past the PC brigade now, but popular in its day. The animals tended to be things like double headed sheep, and snakes with two tails. All rather freakish, oh, and as a rule all rather dead.

One exception to the rather dead rule was on Gilbert Chadwick’s animal show. He actually had a live monkey as one of the exhibits. Joey the monkey was some small breed about the size of a cat. He was lightning fast and had really sharp teeth. This I can attest to, as a young kid, a group of us were with one of the older boys feeding dead goldfish to Joey. Unfortunately I didn’t let go of mine quickly enough and Joey bit me.

Colin, the older kid gave me a bottle of shandy as a bribe not to tell my dad. But when they saw the blood and demanded to know what happened I caved in and spilled the beans.

Now, to take your kid into hospital with a monkey bite, would be an unusual occurrence for any doctor. What made it worse, was the fact that this all occurred in the town of Hartlepool.

For those who don’t know, there was a French warship wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool during one of our many conflicts with France. Legend has it the only survivor was a large monkey who was the ships mascot.

The locals having never met a Frenchman, and being a bit dim, assumed the monkey was a French spy. They tried questioning him, but as none of them could speak French, and the monkey wasn’t too good with English, they decided to hang him for not cooperating. Hence the nickname for the locals of monkey hangers.

So, in we traipse to hospital and the doctor asks whats up.

“My son has been bitten!” says dad.

“No probs”, says the doctor, “What has bitten him?”

“A monkey”, replies dad, cheerily

“Ha Ha Mr Moody, we have heard all the jokes before, whats really bitten him?”

Now when dad again reiterated it was a monkey the doctor wasn’t amused. After a brief explanation though we got him to believe us, he ended up ringing a specialist unit in London to ask how to treat a monkey bite. Turns out the same as a dog bite, clean the wound and a Tetanus injection.

**Gilbert Chadwick, Deadly Monkey Owner As A Young Lad**

Gilbert Chadwick as a youngster — **Gilbert Chadwick, Deadly Monkey Owner As A Young Lad**

Striptease Show

Again, before the rise of the PC movement, there were a number of strip shows at funfairs. My wife’s Great Uncles owned one, which we used to see at the Newcastle Town Moor every year. To give them their due, they wouldn’t let us kids in, well, not unless we were accompanied by an older kid.

But we spent a couple of hours every morning in there attending some preacher giving religious education lessons. I am not sure how the heck our parents actually got us in there initially, but the preacher was quite astute. If you listened to your lessons and answered questions correctly he would give you a ticket. A certain amount of tickets would win you a bible. Suddenly it became a competition. We didn’t really want the bibles, but we did want to be top dog.

Striptease funfair style — **Striptease Show, Come Religious Sunday School**

A line of artistes — **Striptease Show, Come Religious Sunday School**

Those Great Uncle’s were the Gooch Brothers, George and Lonzo. Legends in the North East. Their ingenuity knew no bounds. One year at Durham Miners gala. The star of their show ran off at teatime. With no hope of finding a replacement they appeared stuck. The solution was elegent in its simplicity. They quickly painted a board for the front of the show with ‘Durham Sky At Night’ Emblazoned across it. When you paid you shilling to go in, you would find that they had removed the roof of the show, allowing you to gaze up at, yup, Durham’s sky at night.

A similar crises befell them at another event, and their crazy inventiveness saved the day again. Another hastily painted sign proclaimed ‘See the Holy Water Otter.’ When you forked you money over and entered the bowels of the show, there, sat on a table, in a cage, was a Kettle punched full of holes. ‘Holey water Hotter’ get it. Thankfully the patrons tended to see the funny side, as they seldom had to argue over the no refunds sign.

Their mother, was well known as the tattooed lady. During a particularly grim economic period, she was struggling to make ends meet. To remedy this, she had her entire body, save for her head hands and neck, completely covered in tattoos so she became a sideshows exhibit. Imagine the pain that must have been. I think they were of a lot sterner stuff in those days.

Other SideShows

I have only touched on the multitude of sideshows that once travelled the length and breadth of the country. Few of them would still be viable now. Some, like the strip shows wouldn’t be allowed. And others like the freak animals, well, you can look at that stuff all day long on the internet.

The golden goddess — **Some Of The Weird And Wonderful Side Shows**

The werewolf, another of the inventive sideshows — **Some Of The Weird And Wonderful Side Shows**

I especially like the cat in the last picture, I presume it is searching for some of the former stars of the sideshows.

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Fun Story, Funfair Rides

Disneyland Paris, And The Religion Of Football

21 October 2020

In the early days of being married, with a young child, like many couples money was tight. We were building the business, and not wanting to borrow money for non essentials, so holidays tended to be in the UK.

My wife however decided one day to book a coach trip to Disneyland Paris. We were spending all our working days on fairgrounds, so where do you want to go on holiday, a fairground obviously.

Bigger And Better

To be fair, it was bigger and better than anything I had encountered in the UK. Give the Americans their due, they have some nasty megalomaniacal habits, but they do entertainment ever so well.

The castle at the entrance sets the tone, you’re impressed before you even get in there. And it continues, the rides tend to be bigger and better. The thing that impressed me the most was how they were themed and integrated. It didn’t feel like a disparate collection of attractions thrown together, rather a fantasy land that had grown up, all part of the same organic creation.

The only minus points we personally gave it was when our daughter managed to get a splinter. The first aid ‘Lady’ was a typical Parisian, arrogant and rude, whilst looking like a fashion model.

Its funny though how people’s perceptions can be skewed. Not long after we had been another friend took his family. He hated it, all he kept saying was how overpriced everything was. That was a bit puzzling, as the food and drink wasn’t much more than most European tourist traps. Eventually we got to the bottom of it, they like to drink, a lot, a very lot. Where we had a pint and a glass of wine with our lunch, he had 6 pints, and his wife 6 double vodka and cokes. So where we barely noticed the price of booze, they were massively upset about it.

The Religion Of Football

Now, hailing from the little North East town of Middlesbrough, I have always supported the team. Not in the usually fanatical way of North Easterners in general, I mean I don’t go to the games or anything, but I always look their results up on a Saturday night.

Anyway, what my wife didn’t tell me when she booked this trip, was that the coach came from Sunderland, one of Middlesbrough’s main football rivals, and was basically full of a chapter of their supporters club.

My daughter being young and naive, and not realising the danger she was putting us in, managed to let everyone know we supported Boro.

Jeez, I was ribbed all the way there.

On the way back the driver decided to turn the BBC World Service on. Just moments before it switched to the football results. “And we are going to the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland have just scored against Middlesbrough” announced the bloody toffee nosed git on the radio.

Like one mass hive minded organism, the entire bus rose up and started chanting at me, “We have scored a goal, we have scored a goal.” the excitement was palpable.

A Bit Premature

It was also a bit premature.

“The score is now Sunderland 2, Middlesbrough 4.” Announced the reporter from the Stadium. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They would either be good sports as those in the North East generally are. Or we were about to be ripped limb from limb.

As it was, the hive mind was still in evidence. The entire bus sat down together and looked out of the window. You could have heard a pin drop for most of the journey home.

When they dropped me off at home and the bus set off, I ran after it screaming “four two, four two”

Those at the back held up two fingers so they must have got part of the message.

**Your Typical Sunderland Yob, Fan, I Mean Fan**

In fairness I grew up in Sunderland, and it’s all part of a friendly rivalry between the Noth East teams.

But Boro are the best.

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Event Planning, Fun Story, funfair events, Funfair Rides

Myth Busters On The Funfair

10 July 2020

Myth Busters on the funfair. Growing up in a funfair community, before making the move into full time corporate entertainment. I came across over the years some stunning examples of ignorance concerning our industry.

I will attempt to expel some of the most common, and in same cases hilarious examples I have personally been witness to.

Be Careful They Don’t Steal Your Kids

I think this is a holdover from people thinking we are gypsy’s. As I have heard the same comments directed at them. As far as I can find out from a medical point of view, people brought up on the fairground, have the same levels of fertility as the wider community. So why an earth does any rational person think we need to steal kids. The community also being extremely tight knit, wasn’t really very accepting of outsiders. So anyone magically acquiring a kid they had purloined from the outside world would find it very quickly ostracised.

As an aside, there have been occasional cases in the news where people have abducted children from hospitals etc, and been caught. To the best of my knowledge, none of these people have ever had a connection with our industry. So perhaps we have more to fear for our kids being stolen than the other way around.

All The Men On The Fairground Have Tattoos

Hmm, looking at the popular media portrayal of the fairground worker you would think so. Only we don’t, tattoos are considered about on par with halitosis or scabies, you don’t want them. The actual fairground owners just don’t have tattoos. Dave, who you met on the waltzers will almost certainly have them. But here’s the thing, Dave is a local lad that has been employed to help on the rides. He is one of you, not one of us.

The Lads On The Fair Will Steal Your Girlfriend

This is one that I have to hold my hands up and admit has more than a grain of truth. To some teenage girls the bright lights and big rides seem exotic. And there are many cases of hook ups between said young ladies and guys on the fair. It was usually followed the next day by punch ups between irate boyfriends and guys on the fair.

When The Fair Is In Town Crime Goes Up

This is a persistent one that we could never seem to shake off. Some towns we visited would see many of the shops close the week we were there. It’s a stark contrast to the continent, where the fairs and the local chamber of commerce and shops all work together. Indeed on many Dutch Fairgrounds, the shops will sponsor prizes for the best ride or attraction.

I once asked a local superintendent about this, and what he told me was that in his experience the opposite was true. He said that most of the toerag thieves and druggies tended to visit the fair, rather than be out on the rob, so he claimed a reduction in things like housebreaking.

We Know He Was Off The Fairground Because He Wasn’t Wearing Socks Or Shoes

This was an actual quote made to me by a police officer. We had all arrived to set up in Preston Park for an annual event. A squad car turned up with a couple of young officers in. The officer in charge started enquiring if any of us were missing a member of staff. He explained that a body had been found on the motorway about 20 miles away. When I asked why they thought a random body was anything to do with us, that was his reply. “He wasn’t wearing socks or shoes.” Funny thing, I looked down and all of us had socks and shoes on. Well at least we had shoes, without going round pulling trousers legs up I couldn’t swear to the socks. Obviously the officer in question had failed the intelligence test to become a Unigate milkman and joined the police force instead.

We Have A Large Suspect Pool, It Consists Of Everyone Who Was Working At The Fair

We have endured similar over the years. I once received a message from the police that they would like to interview me. It is only routine they said, but they were interviewing everyone who had attended Stokesly Show Fair due to a young lady being sexually assaulted. I told the female detective that she couldn’t see me that day as I was just leaving to an event in Ripon city centre. “No, probs, I did my probation at Ripon nick, could you pop in and see me, only take a minute.”

I duly popped in, and as I sat down in front of her she told me that I was free to go. Turned out they weren’t actually interviewing people, they had a description and if you fitted it they would arrest you. Just out of interest I enquired as to how they intended to track everyone who had attended the fair to see if they fit the description. “Oh we don’t, we are only interviewing people off the actual fair!”

So there might well have been 100,000 people visit the event. But the suspects were strictly limited to the couple of hundred showmen. Who would actually have been hard at work during the time of the fair. Sometimes in compiling these myth busters I truly despair as to the levels of prejudice.

Harrogate

A similar thing occurred a few years later at the Harrogate stray funfair. It seems that someone had been knocked off of their bike and killed on a country road leading to harrogate. Because that particular week the fair was in town, it was decided by the local Stasi, erm sorry constabulary, that it must be a funfair vehicle that had hit him. I mean, there was at least 20 funfair vehicles used that road on that day compared to only a few thousand non funfair vehicles, so its obvious isn’t it.

Anyway said local force turned up armed with paint scrapers to scrape paint samples from all the vehicles on the fair. I must admit this still annoys me all these years later as I had just had my vehicle resprayed, some two weeks before. Again I asked if the paint vandalism was being carried out on all the local hauliers vehicles. Silly question that I knew the answer to before it was asked.

They Don’t Pay Taxes

Another common misconception that we can use in our myth busters. Oh, if only. If I didn’t pay taxes I would be able to afford that 4 seat Cessna airplane I fancy. Or a nice motor cruiser. Obviously there will be some who don’t declare everything to HMRC. But the proportion will be no different to the wider world who aren’t showmen. I don’t for one minute think there are enough funfair operators fiddling their books to keep all those tax inspectors in employment.

Myth Busters They Just Turn Up And Set Up

In January I used to be able to tell you almost every fair I would be attending that season. There would be an occasional gala I might pick up at the last minute. Or occasionally the weather would cancel a fair and I would manage to secure a plot at an alternative. But by and large the events I attended were regular events. That had in some cases been going on for hundreds of years. Even the smaller events would still need permission from landowners, liaison with the police and other local emergency services, sometimes road closure orders, and all would need the layout and mixture of rides and attractions sorting out well in advance. We also needed to advertise the event in advance to ensure we had enough patrons to make it worthwhile.

I cannot remember in 50 years, once ever just turning up and deciding a plot of land would be nice for an immediate funfair to be opened.

Hopefully we can add some more myth busters to our list in the future.

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Fun Story

8 Hours Stuck Up A Tree!

25 May 2020

I used to read how suicide was a major killer of men. That’s something you don’t really take notice of until it happens to your friends. Since hitting 45 I have lost a number of friends. Some to illness, an accident or two and one acquaintance with a drugs overdose.

Recently an old friend from my childhood took his own life. Now, usually the death of a friend brings a feeling of profound sadness. In this case it was a mixture of sad, and anger. Some days the anger drowning out the sadness.

Growing up on the fairground, there was a real tight gang of us. Hitting our mid twenties, most of us found love and some of us moved away from the North East, losing touch in the process. JJ and I had been friends up until we both moved. We didn’t see each other for probably 20 years, then we met up at a mutual friends funeral. We ended up sat talking that long, that both of our spouses rang to see if we were ok, as they had expected us back hours before.

Catching up on things we made a commitment to get together again. He was particularly impressed that I had acquired my pilots licence and we agreed to take a flight together. In the run up to Christmas we had been texting each other to try and arrange a night out, but our respective diary’s stopped this. On our last text we agreed to pick it back up after Christmas

That was the last contact I had with him. A few days into the new year, my dad rang to tell me that JJ had killed himself.

There aren’t many funerals I cry at, its just not in my nature, but I did at that one. All the old gang were there, except Cliff, who is in prison. I was struck by how everyone had turned into a hugger. That wasn’t the macho gang I remember from my youth. But is that part of the problem. Men are expected to be macho, not to cry, to be inscrutable with their feelings.

It Can Be Frightening

Deciding to talk about this with my circle of friends, what I discovered was frightening. Probably 90% of them were on antidepressants. A couple admitted that they had seriously taken steps towards ending their lives. One described how he had sat there with a gun to his head trying to pluck the courage up to pull the trigger. Something snapped him out of it thankfully, and he threw the gun down, only to have it go off and narrowly miss shooting himself in the head! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry with him.

If you read the government statistics then it shows that the so called Generation X, basically my age group are most at risk of dying from either suicide or drugs overdose.

Man shot in the head — **Can You Accidentally Commit Suicide**

Killer Bulls

So whats this got to do with the headline. Well, one of the funfairs we used to operate at when I was a kid, was in a little market town on the Yorkshire Dales called Leyburn. One day me, JJ and Cliff, the one in prison now, had gone fishing. Three of us sat there with one rod, when JJ suddenly jumped up and ran away.

As I sat staring at his back, Cliff suddenly jumped up and ran the other way. Still puzzled I set off after him, catching him quite quickly due to my longer legs I asked between gasps what was up. “They are coming to kill us he screamed”. ???? Looking over my shoulder I suddenly notices a herd of young bullocks stampeding towards us. Now I don’t know if they intended harm, or they had just set off at a gallop because we were running. And to be honest I didn’t care at that point. We reached a tree, which thankfully was climbable and both shimmied up as far as we could get.

The herd of bloody cows, formed a circle around the tree, then all promptly laid down looking up at us. WTF. Eventually they slowly dispersed, probably bored waiting for their meals to come down. In the event we were up their almost 8 sodding hours.

And what of JJ, the one who got away. He went home watched some morning TV, had his lunch, played with some of the other kids, then near teatime decided to tell what had happened. We ran into the rescue party as we finally managed to come down out of the tree and were making our way home.

Suicide is so bloody final! And truly frightening when you look at how it seems to be increasing.

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Fun Story, General

Showmen, Covid and The NHS

3 May 2020

Showmen Thank The NHS. Like many business’s at the minute, the funfair industry has pretty much ceased to exist. With events cancelled up until the middle of the summer and beyond. Indeed some Christmas events are now being cancelled, we are not sure when we will be allowed to operate again.

The common opinion is that it will be next year before events start to come out of the lockdown. We can’t see all the sacrifices made during the lockdown period being swept aside by letting major festivals go ahead. And rightly so. The important thing at the minute is saving lives, hard as it sounds, business will need to take a back seat.

Showmen are an enterprising breed, many have rapidly started small food delivery business’s to keep some income rolling in. There must be a massive market in home delivered fruit and veg. If the amount of showmen who have turned greengrocer is any indication.

Saying Thank You

The showmen however, in the midst of seeing their livelihoods disappear, and with no real idea when they will be allowed to work again, have found time to say thank you to our heroic front line NHS staff and key workers.

We have all stood and clapped to let them know how we feel, but around the country, groups of showmen have raised funds to show their appreciation in a practical way.

Many hospitals put calls out for toiletries and such like. As patients were ending up on Corvid wards, with no supplies. Because of the current visiting rules, their families couldn’t come to see them and bring what they needed.

In short order groups of showmen have raised not inconsiderable sums to purchase toiletries, bottled water, things like pot noodles and other snacks to help alleviate the hospitals shortage.

Showmen’s Guild

In my native North East, the funfair trade body made a donation to start the ball rolling. A number of showmen also took it upon themselves to raise funds.

One member donated a vehicle to be used for delivering the items. Another who runs a small sign making business, lettered the vehicle up free of charge.

They made delivery runs to a number of Northern hospitals. Other showmen added to this and covered smaller centres such as care homes.

I have touched upon the Northern Section of the industry, purely because I come from the area. But the same thing has taken place in most parts of the UK. North East local press reported on the story.

It just goes to show, “There is no business like show business”, and the Showmen thank the NHS to show their appreciation.

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