a fairground life

Friday
"r" and I drove over the the music event. The site co ordinator was there. With his measuring wheel he marked out the plots. Funny, I thought, we showmen only use a tape when it is extremely tight, most of the time we just pace it out, 3,6,9 and so on.
With that we started to get the skydiver under way. Only a slight problem with a siezed backflash panel hinge. A couple of squirts of oil , a knock with the hammer and we were back on track. The weather was fine and by 2:30pm we were trying the ride out. With that we came back to the yard to pick up a few things and then off to Stranraer, stopping briefly at Girvan for a fish supper. It was just on 6pm when we arrived. The fair was fully open by 6:20pm. Its easy to keep track of time here as there is a tower clock on the harbour masters office at the end of the ground (funfair site). I have opposition here this year as there are two miami rides present. This did affect my business, but that said, there were definately less numbers of customers present than last year. By 10 pm we were closed and I drove home to Glasgow again. So day 1, that's 5 hours driving and only 3 hours 40 minutes on the fair, you can see where all the time is going to be spent this week, behind the wheel!
I spoke briefly to Mr White who runs the fair, his grandfather took the running of the fair just after WW II. However the fair dates back even further than this and in a local pub there are some pictures dating back to the late 1800s. In my life time the rides attending have changed. In the 70s Whites had 4 rides, waltzer,dodgem,big wheel, twist. Now the dodgem is still there but under a new owner. The Waltzer is now another showmans, the Wheel position is now occupied by anothers Dropzone and whites only equipment on the fair is a ghost train occupying the twist plot. In fact this branch of the Whites have no large rides at all now!
Other rides that have come and gone over the years at this fair are- dive bomber,octopus,rock o plane, superbob,paratrooper,skydiver,superstar,trabant and all this was in relatively modern times 80s-90s. Some rides have also been replaced by newer ones of the same type- two twists, two tagadas, three miamis.
Right now the line up is- miami, dodgem,miami,dropzone,twist,waltzer,ghost train,crazyfrog,tagada plus numerous stalls and juveniles.