There were few enough occasions when the Fair (or The Hobbies as we called it - short for Hobby Horses) came to town but they were all the more memorable for their infrequency. If we could scrounge a few pence from our parents or had been thrifty enough to save some of our money from the blackberry season, then we had the time of our lives, when all our delights came together – pop music blaring from massive amplifiers (songs chosen by our friend James Dean who was lucky enough to get occasional employment there),  excited groups of teenage girls, swings on carousels that spun you so fast you were often parallel with the ground some twenty feet below you, roll-a-penny gambling booths, paper packages of fish ‘n chips doused in vinegar – all  in the disused Market down by the Clinic.   

 

One had to be careful not to be seen in the company of an old girlfriend if  now one was doing a line with another! But in those hedonistic times we were prepared to risk all  and loyalty to one girl was considered less than cool. [To my credit I am still on speaking terms with all those former girl friends – I will not name them to spare their feelings – so I can’t have strayed from the path of righteousness, with the majority of them at least].

 

You were fairly safe on the Dodgem Cars which were considered far too dangerous for most girls to take on. 

To our untutored and less-than-sophisticated minds, those early Dodgems were almost suicidal in the peril they posed. 

 

Even approaching from a distance, they resembled a busy welder’s yard, with streams of sparks raining from the metal grid ceiling where the steel spring from the rod at the back of each car made the contact that drove each chariot through three hundred and sixty degree turns. Occasionally a brightly-burning barrage would threaten to fall right into the car you were driving.

 

After you handed over your precious coins, the worst possible outcome was to find yourself in a car that was sluggish, broken or temperamental for then you instantly became the object of every other driver's spite! Just as you uselessly spun the wheel clockwise, then anti-clockwise, to free your trapped carriage, at least ten other drivers slammed into your stationary wagon with joyous whoops of glee! 

Even small and nervous children who would never normally hurt a fly would drive recklessly into your side, while the attendant, riding carelessly on your rear running board struggled in vain to raise a stir from your dead machine.

 

The attendants actively encouraged head-on crashes, castigating the timid  riders who shirked such confrontations. The cars were souped-up so that the instant you touched the accelerator you shot off with a whiplash effect on your upper body. You frantically but uselessly spun the driving wheel to exert some control but that car had a mind of its own. When you came in contact with another car, or the side wall, you came to such a sudden stop that you were almost propelled into the metallic floor of the gladiatorial arena. 

 

This you had to avoid like the Black Death. Indeed death might well result if your body should inadvertently complete an electrical circuit.

 

I once saw a boy abandon his vehicle under such a barrage. As he set foot on the metal floor, bolts of blue electricity jetted in on him from all directions. Every single moving car drove instantly in his direction, attempting to finish him off while the going was good!

 

Miraculously he stumbled in a daze to the periphery and tumbled in a heap on the nearby grass. For a time he remained lit up like an X-ray. 

 

As he continued to smoke lightly from the top of his head, he appealed in a croaking whisper for someone to get word to his mum that he  "loved her , would remember her fondly and was sorry to have sneaked out without her permission".

 

Whether or not he ever fully recovered no one knew, because we all quickly lost interest when he failed to expire, right there on the spot, which was the very least we expected of him. 

 

We went back to our fun.