Sheffield Fun-Fairs

[Keith_exS10]

Late addition by an old  newcomer.

All in the middle and north I note. .Visiting my grandparents at Middlewood pre WW2 I would dearly have liked to go to the MASSIVE fair in Hillsborough Park but somehow it was never convenient. The only one  local to us was  in Endcliffe Park. This had all the usual rides and a set of sideshows and stalls that quietly relieved me of my pocket money. It was there for a week and for one time only as a family outing my father took over the paying. That helped.

To me one of the best bits  if we knew was when  to wait and listen at Hunters Bar for the arrivals. A road train of a living van and  equipment trailers, snaking round the island up Ecclesall Road and turning into the park  at Rustlings Road entrance hauled  by a polished Showmans engine, going hard at it, smoke all over the Bar  was quite something. Straight across the grass and set up by the trees. The real thing, not quite the same as a Steam Fair. Then came the wheedling to visit in the evening  Not much spending, this was to look at the engines quietly generating with all their  canopy lights on.

How long that fair had been coming I have no idea. I believe the last one was 1939. and it didn't  survive the war. Fortunately preservation and  Steam Rallies took off which made up for it somewhat. Happy days