CARTERS Steam Fair, a touring collection of vintage attractions, is saying farewell with its final hurrah in Reading from this weekend.
After 45 years of touring its collection of authentic steam rides and side stalls, Carters has is concluding its last tour with a visit to Prospect Park.
Joby Carter has maintained and toured the collection after taking over from his parents, John and Anna Carter, who began it when they bought the Jubilee Steam Gallopers.
Mr Carter said: “Well, it’s all I’ve ever known.
“We started when I was born, right when I was a year old – every summer we went all in working at the Fair, and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger.
“So I’d always lived in wagon, though I live in a house now, as well as the wagon.”
Mr Carter says that his experiences were “extremely unusual, as life experience goes – we’re showmen”.
He continued: “There were families who’d been doing it for generations as we came into it.
“And it was a time when people weren’t really coming into it – I’m second-generation when most are fifth, sixth, or seventh generation from families which started in Victorian times.”
Mr Carter said that while travelling showmen can feel apart from society, Carter’s was also apart from other Fairs.
“We were always outsiders, as showmen, so we didn’t fit in any pigeonholes, and what we’ve done is completely unique.
“There are still some who can’t stand our guts because we just didn’t conform and didn’t do it their way – of joining the guild and go by their rules.
“We stood alone and did things differently, Just the way we wanted to do it, and we were respected somewhat for that, but we don’t mix with other Fairs.
Carters has a unique collection of faithfully restored rides, some well over a century old.
The Fair has operated, maintained, and travelled with rides and sidestalls dating as far back as the 1890s.
Mr Carter says that there’s a reason their Fair keeps to itself.
“If you take our dainty vintage equipment, and stick it next to a modern ride, it can’t compete – it’s a bit like taking a beautiful 1930s Formula One car to a race.
“To look at it, you’d die it was so beautiful, but it couldn’t actually go as fast as today’s Formula 1 cars.
But it’s authentic; there’s no strip lights or plastic cap lights, so beautiful, and basically looks like a film set, which is why we’ve been in so many films.
“It’s a beautiful place to be.”
Part of the beauty of the collection is the authentic, manual paintwork on the attractions, which Mr Carter himself specialises in.
He’s taught the art of sign writing for 15 years, and said it was his online teaching which helped him through the pandemic while the Fair wasn’t travelling.
Since the lockdowns, Mr Carter said that it’s been an incredible year for the Fair.
“We’ve had people from the continent, people visit especially from Australia, and people really make the effort to visit us.
“We knew people would be sad that we were stopping, but we didn’t know that they’d be this upset.
“Maybe they assumed we’d go on forever.”
More than 100,000 people visited the collection in six months of its return tour in 2021, and he said that some even “lined the streets” during its farewell tour this year.
Now that he’s taking some more time with his family and with his art ventures, Mr Carter says he has no intention of splitting the collection up.
“I have been inundated with people that want to buy things individually– attractions, side stalls, even the wagons.
“There’s stuff around the periphery that I would have sold off anyway, but the collection comes as a package.”
He said he’s looking for somewhere that the collection can be kept safe and hopefully still bring joy to the public too.
“I’d really want trust or a private individual to recognise that it’s of national importance, if they can actually give it a better home than me.
“I hope someone can stand up and say that it needs looking after.”
Mr Carter said that waving goodbye to the collection will be tough: “We were touring and did a road run up to Maidenhead, and the streets were lined like never seen them lined before.
“There was a kid who made this banner that said ‘thank you for the memories’ and I was really moved by it.
“We were welling up.”
Due to the collection’s age, as well as meticulous upkeep, maintenance, and preservation, he said that we “may never see the likes of it again in a green field.”
For now, he is seeking a new home for the collection, and has high hopes for it once it has moved on.
“We want to make it educational– what kind wouldn’t want to learn about the industrial revolution by riding on a vintage, restored funfair?
“Especially if that might mean it goes on forever.”
Carters Steam Fair is at Prospect Park on Saturday and Sunday, October 15-16, and during half-term week from October 22-30. For more details, log on to: www.carterssteamfair.co.uk/
