An old song popped up over the weekend that always reminds me of the fairground.
I used to love going to the fair, and the added excitement was that they always played really loud chart tunes as you bumped those cars or rode that train. This tune was Gimme Some by Brendon, a one hit wonder from 1977, a song I now know to be a northern soul classic and which has its own dance routine that I once saw done in Huddersfield at a wedding. I thought this might be a one off but it seems it does have a dance attached, though it's not on YouTube. Does anyone know why this is?
Anyhoo, back to the fair. As much as I enjoyed it, I couldn't go on anything that went round. I remember one white-knuckle ride on a waltzer where the guy in charge spun us round so hard and so long, that the Isle of Wight holiday we had planned for the following day had to be postponed due my, er, illness. I can't even look at anything going round now, as the memories come flooding back, the sick comes rising up.
I don't think I've been a fair that's not a theme park for at least 20 years. The smell of the chips and fried onions, the That'll Be The Day-type staff, the cheap fluffy gonks, the claw thing that no one ever wins on skimming over the packets of cigarettes with a wraparound £1 note, the fuzzy instructions to hold on tight, the genuine terror on the ghost train, the sirens wailing as the rides start, and Have I The Right by Dead End Kids kicking in.
Ah, those were the days. The fairs I see on commons and parks in London always look really rough to me, and quite empty too. Is there no longer fun to be had at the fair?
So here's Brendon - who looks like he could work at the fair himself.
