The fair that saved rides from the scrapheap

The director of the Landmark Trust (Gormley commemorates Landmark Trust on a human scale, 7 November) is probably mistaken in thinking that the trust’s founder Sir John Smith was the only Conservative MP who was also a member of the union of fairground showmen. As far as I am aware he was never a member of the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain in any capacity. However, he had an active interest in the world of the travelling showmen, and in 1964 – the year before he launched the trust – he played host to the Great Steam Fair in Shottesbrooke Park, his Berkshire home. This one-off event brought together several fairground rides that had survived from the age of steam. It was a great success, and through the similar events that it inspired in the following years, such as the Great Dorset Steam Fair, it prolonged the active life of a whole generation of veteran rides that were then on the verge of being consigned to the scrapheap. Significantly, all the rides that appeared at the great steam fair half a century ago are still in existence today. For the record, the only member of the Showmen’s Guild to be an MP was the legendary showman Pat Collins, who served as Walsall’s Liberal member from 1922 to 1924.
Graham Downie
Chairman, the Fairground Association of Great Britain