It is curious how certain things have the capacity to transport us on to another plane of thought entirely. Just recently, I was happily listening to some folk music, more particularly traditional British folk music. Many songs and song lyrics in that field contain references to fairs, as in a travelling fair or carnival. These references rekindled memories and fond recollections of a near-forgotten slice of my childhood.
When I was growing up a patch of land near to our home played host, several times a year, to a travelling fair, or a "feast" as the locals tended to describe it. From an early age, as soon as I became properly conscious of this curious phenomenon on my doorstep, I was fascinated by the spectacle and many of the ideas behind it. Only now can I begin to truly rationalize the appeal of the fair, and the interest and excitement which it offered to me in those times.
In my early years, it is now apparent, I was somewhat dreamy and somehow detached from my peers, never completely feeling to be an integral part of the world, or indeed the community. Solitude was my almost default, mode, not necessarily by choice, but because so much made me uncomfortable. For someone who felt like an outsider, even if I was not able to articulate those sentiments, a "sub-culture" such as the fun fair held a certain allure, attraction and mystique.
I would spend hours watching and observing the goings-on at the fair from our window, occasionally making my way on foot to the site, seeing at close quarters the work of the "feast-men", as I generally referred to them, as they assembled the rides and went about their regular, accustomed tasks.
So what specifically made me so interested? Apart from a vague sense of the "differentness" of that way of life, there were other factors, although at that stage I was incapable of making sense of them or voicing my "reasoning".
There was a tendency among some of the local people to look down on the travelling people, the sort of thing which is frequently seen when "outsiders" visit a slightly insular place. The locality concerned was much less cosmopolitan and diverse, less enlightened, than it would later become.
Looking back, I can say that maybe without realizing it at the time, I admired their independence, their resourcefulness and their resilience. They exuded a certain dignity; one could use the word "proud", in its positive, non-pejorative meaning. Their bearing can be seen against the increasing regimentation and regulation which was prevalent in society.
Occasionally I harboured a tentative desire to "run away" and join the fair, in the same way that some individuals wanted to run away and join a circus.
From a distance of several decades, I can lament that I failed to take practical inspiration from the "feast people", by cultivating some of those laudable traits. Equally I can accept and understand that my view of them was romanticized and simplistic. They had probably envied people like me, and they almost certainly had to wrestle with the same difficulties and concerns as everyone else, the same dilemmas and anxieties which are part of the human condition.
I think, in addition, that the fair, and its characteristics, offered me something that was "my own", an interest which I could call my own, and take refuge and solace in, even feeling that I had a modicum of control over it, None of my relatives or friends even remotely shared my enthusiasm for my near-obsession. I therefore did not feel the burden of having to "compete" with other people in this little ahadowy corner.
Once put together, the "feast" itself was in fact a feast for the senses. I can still vividly recall the sounds, the sights and the aromas. The music, the toffee apples and the candy-floss. When combined, they constituted something invigorating but comforting, and the picture was that of people coming together for a common purpose; to enjoy themselves and to forget, if only for a short while, the daily grind of grim commercial struggle and toil. This was working-class culture of the kind which encouraged social cohesion and inclusion, hopefully warding off alienation and desperation.
There was something of hope, optimism and reassurance represented by the fair, as something that would apparently always be there as a source of welcome and stability.
As these things invariably turn out, my interest and inquisitiveness regarding the fair were sustained until round about the onset of my teenaged years, before other preoccupations assumed precedence.
I rather lost track of what was happening, and before I knew it the fondly-remembered fair was no more, and the land where the festivities had been situated was eventually given over to the construction of new houses.
When the change occurred it seemed somehow emblematic of shifts both within my own life and in the shape and spirit of the wider world. My own life was becoming more and more about responsibilities, less carefree , more concerned with hard-nosed decisions and "pragmatism".
I look back now on the demise of the fair, rightly or wrongly, as symbolic of the devouring of "common" resources for private gain. So in place of the frivolity and shared contentment of "the feast" we have a dreary residential estate, where people can isolate themselves, watch property values rise, and become gradually divorced from community and reason. No doubt they also become safely "insulated" from worries about social exclusion and inequality.
I am under few illusions about the imperatives which drove the end of the fair and the arrival of the two and three bedroomed boxes, but I wish that there was still more room for things like that which brighten the imagination and people's horizons. Maybe I just don't understand the true meaning of the expression "human needs". Somewhere the balance appears to have been lost, it sometimes seems to me.
The end of the fair's existence was a case of "innocence lost", both in the course of a human life and in terms of a general departure in the ways of the world. Do youngsters have a "Fair", or its equivalent , nowadays? I really do hope so.
