In what promises to be the final blog about Goose Fair this year, I should have really put this out on Monday but for two reasons; firstly I wrote about something else and forgot and secondly I have just emptied my camera onto the computer and reminded myself about the pictures that I took when Goose Fair was being dismantled. 

To be honest most of it was already gone by the time I turned up with my camera, as they do the bulk of the work as soon as the fair closes on Sunday night. A few of the bigger rides were still dotted around, or at least bits of them were which goes to show how hard the people who run fairgrounds work. Of course this is the job that most of them were born into so erecting and dismantling a roller coaster is probably something they could do with their eyes closed. I live near the site where a lot of the fair is put into storage for the winter (Goose Fair is one of the last fairs on the annual circuit), and I rather like the eerie atmosphere of a fairground in hibernation. It is for this reason that I like visiting seaside towns in the winter.

I used to live in Skegness as a teenager and you saw the two sides to a seaside town, in the summer the place was a hive of activity as holiday makers swooped in for their week or two by the sea. Fast food smells wafted along, the arcades bleeped their welcome accompanied by the sound of the bingo caller, the donkeys trotted to and from the beach every day, yet we never felt like the lucky ones for living among it. Like the people who go to live in Spain after a holiday because of the weather, life by the sea isn't like it is when you're on holiday because real life happens. When we moved to Skegness I was twelve and I had to go to school, seaside towns have schools. They also have 'real' things like banks, supermarkets, doctors, and all the boring stuff. My favourite thing was to retrace the steps you took in the summer once the season finished, once the six weeks holiday was over the weekends were still busy and October half term was the last hurrah. To me it seemed cool to walk or cycle around the shadows of summer and see the empty boating lake and the boarded up gift shops. A little bit of it would open for February half term but it was in the run up to Easter that things slowly used to unfurl in front of you. Workmen would appear on the pleasure beach, people would be painting shop fronts and sorting things out, and earlier than that us school kids would be out looking for summer jobs. 

Kids wouldn't be allowed to work under the condition that people in my school year did, morning until night with very little social life apart from hitting the nightclub on Saturday. Sunday didn't exist for someone who lived by the seaside as time was money and you could sleep in the winter.

The Sunday Alternative Podcast #58 is available from here

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October Housekeeping

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