Fordingbridge Fair

A Memory of Fordingbridge.

A few days after starting school, I paid my first remembered visit to Fordingbridge Fair. A funfair visited Fordingbridge every year during the first week in September. It was situated in Church Square and in the land opposite and a few stalls were placed in the open space at the junction with Back Street, now called West Street. Cars park there now! The fair was already a shadow of its pre-war self in 1955, according to my parents but it continued to come until 1960. I won a goldfish in a bag, which we kept in a small round bowl in our living room for several months. But the thing I remembered most was the ride that I had on the 'Gallopers', the brightly coloured horses on the big roundabout. I must have been given my own few pennies to spend because I went off on my own. I struggled to get up on one of them and paid my fare, probably only one penny, as the man came round. As the ride went faster and faster I started to hold on for dear life and cry, I was so frightened. I remember my mother stood at the side watching me, she was probably as frightened as I was but there was nothing that she could do about it! When the ride finished I was helped down and my mother told me off for leaving them saying that she hoped that I had learnt a lesson. I had, although in the coming years I again went on that ride but never on my own! As well as the 'Gallopers' there were dodgems, near the churchyard wall, and the swing-boats that were situated over the road in front of Church Cottages. These were the only rides that I remember the rest of the area was full of stalls, Coconut shies, shove halfpenny and shooting ranges etc. It could have been this year or the next but I remember playing in the garden and hearing what I thought was fairy music and going round the flower beds looking for the fairy that was making this lovely music which I could only faintly hear. This must have been the music from the fair, as the latest pop tunes rang out from Church Square they would just about be heard in our garden if the wind were in the right direction.

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