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 ;-)

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Fairground - All the Fun of the Fair

 

‘Grease’ was on TV again the other day. I caught the end of it when I switched on for something else and enjoyed singing and dancing with the end-of-school carnival.  The feel-good factor is excellent, the ‘happy ever after’ is perfect and that last five minutes at the fairground made me feel uplifted.  It rates highly amongst my favourite films of all time. I’ve seen it so many times, I know it word for word, song for song and never tire of it. The DVD must be everlasting.

The Pleasure Beach was on my doorstep but out of bounds to me when I was growing up. It made no sense to me at all because when I was twelve I was told to take my five year old sister to the nearby amusement arcade to ride on the waltzers upstairs. We were based on Central Promenade during that summer and it was far busier than South Shore. We went to the waltzers and the slot machines lots of times. Well, some rules are there to be broken and there was nothing wrong with the Pleasure Beach, as far as I could tell. My friends and I, beat-night skaters, would cut through to reach the Ice Drome and back again. Sometimes we would linger. I couldn’t relax. I was keeping watch for anyone working there who might recognise me from our pub, or know my dad. At home, I was told that dodgy characters frequented the Pleasure Beach, including some of the people who worked there. It didn’t deter me. They might have had a fit if they’d known how many times my best friend and I had talked ourselves into free rides on the Grand National. This was in the days long before wristbands or tokens and people could just go in and walk around for free.

This is David Essex, talking about his younger days working at fairs, which set him in good stead for his character, Jim Maclaine in ‘That’ll be the Day’,

“I’d actually worked on the Dodgems, I worked on the Whip, and what interested me about fairs – and still does – is that kind of scary-but-good atmosphere. There’s a menace there, there’s a danger in the fairground, in the midst of all the whiteness and coloured lights and amusements. Just around the corner is this underlying violence.”

I love ‘there’s a menace there’. Maybe that is what the warnings were about. I wasn’t aware of dubious characters on the Pleasure Beach. A couple of the ride attendants were lads I knew from school, on summer jobs. Nothing menacing about them. No David Essex before he was famous, as far as I noticed – I would have noticed.

Many years later, on a family holiday to Butlins, our daughter wanted to go on an Astroswirl, or something similar. She was about eight and didn’t like rides, but she fancied this one. I backed off and so did her brother, so left with no choice, my husband took her on. Then the screams started.

“Get me off! Get me off now! Stop! Daddy make it stop!”

The whole of Skegness, beyond Butlin’s must have heard her. The ride was halted. They got off and the other people had a longer second turn. Everyone was looking, except me and my son. We were just looking at each other as we wandered off, totally disconnected from the situation.  

I’m just wondering if I could fit ‘Grease’ in before tea time?

I found this poem by Scott Martin, a writer from an area of Scotland I know so well.

A Ballad for the Funfair

A Ballad for the Funfair,
A Seaside town,
The Soldier and his lover,
Lost at sea and their
Final meeting, wherever that may be,
At the End of the World.

Some like Roll-a-Penny
And some prefer the stalls,
Whilst others are mad for the Waltzers
Or flick the silver balls.
But you and me, my love
We were a Roller-Coaster ride:
Our ups and downs, our highs and lows
Were always side by side.

Under an electric star, inside the car
Our sweat glued us, like fear.
You gripped me tight in close delight
Breath pounding in my ear.
Excitement as real as the spinning wheel
And the crudely - painted rides,
Behind the facade of manic - laughter,
Where only sorrow hides.

You saw me once, when you were young
In a dream, standing alone
In some god - forsaken valley,
Battered and scarred by War; false hope
Tattered by reality - like the ragged flags
Hanging listless in the violent breeze,
Washed up, like our dreams
On some sad shore, as it will be
At our final meeting, at the End of the World,
Whenever that may be, with the Sun,
Blood-red and no time for tears
For we have wept an ocean these past years
You and I,my love, so long ago now
Since you sighted land, far away, and you waited
For the tide to turn, but the light faded and died
Over the horizon, as it did
When we stood, together, on a cliff - top
Lashed by the rain of a faded seaside town
Seeing the Carnival lights through the blue - Diesel haze,
The big wheel turning, in it's orbit, like the planets.
Time, standing still for a moment, in the tinny night.
The sad laughter hushed the screams -
Silence, poised, for an eternity of bliss
On the pinnacle of delight.

Scott Martin

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

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