The October Fair

The funfair arrives in Bourne at the end of October every year and it is easy to imagine the delight in the hearts of hundreds of children awaiting with eager anticipation their visit to this wonderland of sights and sounds although most adults doubt that it is the same as it was, but then as we grow older, we firmly believe that things never are as they were. English fairs have a long and honoured tradition and have always been associated with merrymaking. In fact the name fair is derived from the Latin feria meaning a holiday but their object was a serious one and far removed from the swings and roundabouts we see today. Fairs meant commerce and as many were established by the grant of a Royal Charter, the right to hold them became highly prized. 

There is no evidence of such distinguished approval for a fair at Bourne but a Royal Charter was granted to Baldwin Wake, then Lord of the Manor, by King Edward I in 1279 enabling him hold a weekly market every Saturday and extract tolls from those who came to sell their wares. These rights passed to the Cecil family in 1564 and in recent times were acquired from the Marquess of Exeter by South Kesteven District Council who continue to hold markets on Thursdays and Saturdays. There is also evidence that until 1803 the town had a stone market cross on the west side of the market place, ten feet high with an octagonal shaft and three steps at its base, around which the goods from farms and villages were brought in for sale such as butter, cheese and poultry, and visitors travelled in from miles around to buy their produce. From this sprang the weekly markets that we know today. 

Many fairs however were established in towns during the period between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Black Death in the 14th century but most of them were cattle fairs although sheep were sometimes involved and other trading was also carried out. There was one annual fair at Bourne in the Middle Ages but by 1816 the number had risen to three, held on the Thursday nearest to March 7th, May 6th and October 29th and by the end of the century there were four, held similarly on April 7th, May 6th, September 30th and October 29th. People came from long distances to attend, bringing a bustle of activity to a small community that was absent at normal times, and the shops clustered around the market place welcomed the additional business. Performers arrived to entertain visitors and to add to the revelries while the inns and alehouses were filled to overflowing. 

The 18th century brought about changes in the nature of fairs and as the distribution of goods from manufacturers to the shops became more efficient, there was less trading as the years progressed and more emphasis on amusements such as peepshows, rope walkers, freak shows and the first of the rides we know today, swing boats, merry-go-rounds and the big wheel, which in the absence of electricity, depended on the treadmill and crank for power. They eventually degenerated into purely pleasure fairs and it was the travelling showmen who kept them alive, pursuing a nomadic way of life on the fringes of society but the place they once occupied in our folk heritage has been eroded by the advent of the cinema, increased mobility, holidays abroad, a wide variety of recreations and now television and so their arrival in town is no longer the grand event it once was. Consequently, our attitude towards the travelling fair varies from indifference to thinly veiled hostility. 

Itinerant showmen have been coming to Bourne for centuries and the present fair operators, Roger Tuby and Sons, have been involved with travelling fairs since 1853. Their October engagement is part of a hectic schedule that lasts from February to the last week in December and covers a 100-mile radius from their home base at Doncaster in Yorkshire. Roger Tuby's great grandfather was Alderman George Thomas Tuby who became one of the most prominent fairground proprietors in the country. He served for more than thirty years on Doncaster Borough Council and was mayor from 1921-22. Fairs carrying the Tuby banner now appear in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and have made regular appearances in Bourne since 1976. 

Today, the October fair is the only one left in Bourne but it clings on precariously. The fair is noisy, it creates litter and attracts an unruly element and there are invariably cases of rowdy behaviour and vandalism. Almost 100 parking places are lost for five days, access to West Street, North Street and Crown Walk is impeded by showmen's trucks and caravans, electric power cables strewn over the floor create an obstacle course for the unwary while the manic hunt for somewhere to leave the car deters many shoppers who flee to Stamford, Spalding and Peterborough for their household wants instead. The showmen too have their own problems with rising running costs, expensive new rides to keep pace with changing fashion and health and safety rules and regulations that must constantly be addressed. 

The travelling fair has for centuries held an affectionate place in our history, a romance of the road, of moving from town to town and spreading pleasure and enjoyment in its wake, but such imagery of a living, breathing example of the mediaeval past is no longer valid and our showmen are now businessmen driving smart cars and living in luxury caravans while their rides are expensive and often uncomfortable and it is therefore difficult to find much sympathy with them when we are so inconvenienced. 

We must now ask ourselves whether the annual fair has become an anachronism, a tradition rooted in the past but totally out of keeping with the tempo of life in Bourne today. No one suggests that the sheep fairs once held in the town centre should have continued. They have long been driven out by the changing times and an increasing use of the motor car. Even the weekly market has been moved off the streets for the past decade in the interests of road safety and the last circus to visit fifteen years ago set up its big top in a field at the far end of Mill Drove and so we cannot plead that our age-old customs are sacrosanct. Progress is inevitable and there will be casualties. 

The visual textures of our travelling fairs, mostly remembered from childhood, fade as the years pass but there will always be those who lament their changing face and wallow in the nostalgia of these attractions as they were but if the appeal of the candy floss and cake walk are as magical as they insist, then they will be just as appealing from a meadow on the outskirts as they are on a cramped and awkward site on a valuable and much needed car park in the middle of a busy market town. Perhaps the time has come for our annual fair to be moved. Oh for the eyes of a child again for we would never see the problems that this transitory but bewitching world creates. 
 

REVISED JANUARY 2014

See also     Car parking     Images of the October Fair in 2004

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