Rock & Roll Up!

I must concede it does feel a bit strange to be writing about  fairgrounds  during a time of universal lockdown, almost a case of conjuring up a fond remembered past. I walk by the fairground at the end of Blackpool south pier on a daily basis (taking my allotted safe-distancing exercise) and the place looks forlorn. I'm sure there will be bright lights, loud music, hot dogs and whirling rides again at some point. Right now it's hard to imagine when - and so perforce this blog will be a reminiscence about all the fun of the fair as was.

I'm currently re-reading Mark Lewisohn's authoritative (I think it can be called that at 950 pages long) 'Tune In ', part one of 'All These Years ', his projected biographical trilogy about The Beatles. I'm re-reading part one because although part two was due this year, Mark (who used to be a near neighbour of mine when I lived in Berkhamsted) is still working on it. Why mention it here? you may be wondering. The answer is fairgrounds.

Back in the 1950s (we're talking 1956/57 here), when the fair came to town for the week, one of the major attraction for the youth of the day was the music that was played - all the latest nascent rock & roll or country songs from America. This was at a time when such music didn't get radio play in the UK and most families couldn't afford or didn't have a record player or radiogram. You went to the fair to hear the tunes (as well as to ride the rides and try and pick up girls). As the young McCartney and his friend Ian James reminisced: "Sefton Park when the fair came - standing beside the waltzers as they were spinning round - playing at full volume was a track by Charlie Grace called 'Fabulous '... The waltzer was always a favourite attraction because you'd take a girl on it and probably her skirt would blow up, and she'd be screaming and throw her arms around you for protection. And they always played great music." Hence my calling this blog Rock & Roll Up!

I used to enjoy fairs, but not for the blare of the music because by then (mid 1960s) everyone had caught up. My parents owned a record player and I had a radio and all the tunes at the touch of a dial courtesy of the pirate stations (RIP Ronan O'Rahilly who died this week.)

No, I liked the bright lights - fairs were always best after dark - the noise, the rides (dodgems, waltzer and whirligig in particular) and the smells of hot dogs, onions, generator fumes. Fairgrounds brought exotica and bright excitement into our lives a couple of times a year and I loved them for that. They might have been rogueish places but I never got the sense of menace that some have ascribed to them.

The last time I went to one was about ten years ago. It didn't seem as big, brash and exciting as the fairs of my youth and I'm ashamed to say I felt slightly queasy after just a couple of rides! Fairs are definitely a young person's domain.

The genesis of this week's poem goes back to a Mark Grist workshop in 2016. (That shows you how long some of my efforts spend taking appropriate form in the imaginarium.) I'm afraid it's a bit of a horror show, reflecting obliquely the fairground's traditional mix of glamour and menace.

Coconuts
From a tender age I was coconut shy.
The fair ground rendered me giddy,
on my mettle with wonder and fear;
its gaudy blaze and myriad blarings
assaulted, enticed, unsettled.

I'd stand rooted,
appalled and yet enthralled
before the most compelling of all -
not the monstrous whirling waltzer
or web-like spinning ferris wheel
but the simple construct
of the coconut stall:
wooden balls a tanner a time
or three for a shilling.
Roll up and have a fling.

I'd watch mesmerized
as big men hurled those balls
with all their might at ginger nuts
in cups. Was it anger? Mostly they missed.
I'll bang your heads together,
my father used to tell my brothers
when they were making too much row.
Sometimes they'd connect.
With a shocking crack and a split,
sticky coconut milk oozes red.
Mother's silent scream
as bloody-fingered innocence
is shattered. I'm dazed.
Pull me away.

And in the aftermath,
always those sickly yellow squares
upon the green where stalls had been
and shards of ginger skulls.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)