By Phil Creighton
CARTERS Steam Fair has chosen to make Reading its final destination.
The touring attraction, featuring vintage fairground rides, is about to go round the merry-go-round one last time.
Currently situated in Prospect Park, the waltzers will have their last waltz on Sunday, October 30.
It ends a long and distinguished history, but also marks the start of a new chapter for the fair’s master of ceremonies, Joby Carter. He inherited the fair from his parents, and has been on the road ever since.
Carters has always been special for me.
This following memory is from the time when everything was made in black and white, and it was silent, bar a pianist following you around playing appropriate music. Any conversation would involve cards coming up covering the screen, making talking very stilted.
Thank goodness for Technicolor and talkies.
Anyway, this was my first term at Reading University, getting to know people and the town.
My very first Sunday, I was taken by car to a church off the Oxford Road. Not having enjoyed the experience – they don’t approve of women in the pulpit – I decided to walk back to halls of residence, near Whiteknights itself.
Great idea, but this was years before sat navs, smartphones or even mobile phones. If you wanted to know your way around, you had to take an A to Z with you (remember those?) and look for every inch the lost tourist.
Navigating Broad Street was easy enough. But when I hit Cemetery Junction, I realised I’d made a mistake. Likewise, when I walked past the hospital for the second time.
It took a couple of hours to do a 40-minute walk. Still, never made that mistake again.
Anyway, three weekends in, getting to know some people, and Palmer Park was the venue for a night at Carters Steam Fair.
Coming from the middle of nowhere, where you had to make your own entertainment out of vinegar and brown paper, this was quite something. A whole fair, just like the one in the movies – because it was the one in the movies – and on our doorstep.
Cue candy floss, penny arcades, and some romantic walks through the candlelight.
Flash forwards some years, and Carters is back in Palmer Park after some years away due to something to do with holes appearing in the fields, and there is now a small person biting my ankles (yes, it hurt).
A visit to Carters was just the thing. They loved it, especially the helter skelter. So much so that there were many, many, many goes on it that day and, every time, my heart was in my mouth as I worried about whether they would be safe climbing up the stairs and coming down.
But that’s the fun of the fair.
It’s not just a collection of vintage rides. It’s a memory maker.
And one of the most special kinds you will ever find.
Being steam powered, there’s a strong smell that lingers at the back of the throat and the memory. It’s evocative, and marvellous.
The penny arcade, which popped up every now and then, is a special place where only pennies the size of toffee pennies – so that’s how they got their name – fitted.
And the rides – oh the rides, a wonderful collection of this and that, all set to music and beautifully lit at night. Cared for by Joby and his team, and lavishly painted.
We will, like so many of us, be visiting Palmer Park between now and closing date. It just so happens that my 184th birthday is fireworks night. So, one more memory to be made, one more inhalation of the smoke, and one more night of magic.
Can’t wait, but I wish it weren’t so.
