a fairground life

Some one mentioned Wishaw fair. I was never a tenant there, but my wife and my mother both were (about 30 years apart I would guess). I only ever set foot on the ground (fairground) twice. Once when I was about 14 or 15 years old, I can't remember where I was open at myself but one night after closing we went a run in an older friends car. It was late when we arrived and the ground was closed. I remember we climbed over a fence/wall at the back of the loads and this led into the club that the showmen drank in. The fair must have been in decline then as I can remember thinking that there were many gaps between the equipment. This would be in the very early 80s. The next time would be a year or so later. We were open at a fair in Carluke for the Galaday. It was a hot dry summer (as most seemed to be way back then) and one afternoon all the boys from the ground went to swim in a large pool in a nearby field. We were all fit young men between 14-17 years of age. Just aswell because the pool was bottomless with no solid banking. We walked through the waist high reeds until we gradually submerged in the water. HIGHLY DANGEROUS when I think back now, if anyone had got into difficulty it would have been near impossible to help them. The water was dark and there could have been any number of hazards just below the surface. Anyhow thinking better of it we decided to leave and get a bus to Wishaw baths. The baths were near where the ground was and we walked across this area en route for a swim (second time set foot, but not at time of the fair being present). Twenty odd years later both the fair and the baths are gone. (I may have some details in the next part wrong as I only heard it , not witnessed it, so if anyone knows better please tell)--A few (plus) years ago another showman goes to open a fair in Wishaw. He drives his first ride onto the site. The ride (an artic of around 50 tonnes) starts to sink into the ground. They try to drive it away,but it sinks so far into the soil that they have to climb out the cab windows!! They try tractors and lorries to tow it out but cannot move it, they try a crane to lift it out, but the vacuum is too great. Eventually a bulldozer comes and digs out the soil all the way around the ride, then digs a sloped trench behind the ride that they pull the ride out by on the end of a winch. The whole exercise costing thousands and taking days. The site he drove into ----yip, the old swimming pool that had not been filled or compacted very well.