“There’s no atmosphere like you get on the Whitesands when the Dumfries spring fair opens,” says Geraldine Reid, her eyes bright as toffee apples. “The music strikes up, and the generator strikes up, and the children look round in amazement. They want a go on the hook-a-duck duck, and they want a go on the roundabout, and they run from one to the other in excitement.”
Geraldine is a Showwoman born and bred. Her father was a Codona — descended from those Italian puppeteers who landed at Leith dock in the 18th Century, then spawned a fairground empire. Her mother was one of the Millers who once wowed the Borders crowds with their travelling circus.
In her 84 years, she has called on punters to roll up, roll up to hooplas on muddy fields from Helensburgh to Hawick. Together with her husband Mervyn, she has minded the dodgems in Portobello’s Fun City and flogged Kiss-Me-Quick, Squeeze-Me-Tight hats to girls out on the pull at the Kelvin Hall carnival. “Ah, but the Dumfries spring fair was the pinnacle,” she says. “The thing we spent the winter looking forward to.”
Dumfries has two annual fairs dating back to the Middle Ages: one for each equinox, bookending the travelling season. The Rood fair — in September — is bigger, stretching more than a mile along the River Nith from the Devorgilla Bridge to the Dock Park. But the March fair has always marked the moment the show families, parked up for the off-season, emerge, blinking, out of hibernation, and ready themselves for the road. The preparations are intense. Rides are unpacked and inspected, gears and motors tinkered with. Sideshow stalls are washed and repainted and varnished and buffed until they gleam, psychedelic as spring.
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Traditionally, the Dumfries fairs marked a rare crossing of paths for the Borders travellers and the “tramline” travellers, who otherwise plied their trade in and around Glasgow, and so they’re steeped in the lore of lovers’ trysts and family reunions. “When I was wee, my mother would tell me: ‘Your grandmother will be here today’,” Geraldine says. “And I would stand on Whitesands and watch for the van with ‘Millers’ on the side coming along the road.”
Geraldine is old now; her legs are gammy and she has angina. A few years ago, she and Mervyn moved into a chalet in the Hamilton yard owned by their son, Albert, who lives there in a separate house, with his wife Sarah Jane and one-year-old son Albert jnr. This year — perhaps for the first time — Albert is going to the March fair without her. He and his dad are outside, as we speak, hitching a roundabout to his van, ready for the slow, steady trip down the M74.
I had spotted it earlier, folded up like a Disney taco, the cartoon faces of Mickey and Minnie Mouse grinning at me over the top of the yard wall as I approached. The hitching up is a ritual, and, like every ritual, it has its rhythms: father and son moving in a truckers’ pas de deux, as the van is backed up, the coupler attached to the tow ball, and the blocks pulled out from under the roundabout’s wheels.
No-one knows how many more times this ritual will be replayed. At 92, Mervyn’s stooping days must be numbered. Numbered too, it is feared, are the days of the Dumfries fairs. Like dozens others around Scotland, they are threatened by development: in this case, a £37.5m flood prevention and regeneration scheme which would eat into the Whitesands and prevent the bigger rides setting up.
The Showpeople know some action is necessary; they have all suffered the consequences in the years the Nith has burst its banks and their rides and stalls have been swept away on its waters. But their lives — their histories — are intertwined with the town’s. Geraldine’s grandfather died on the Dock Park, and her sister was born there. They hope some solution can be found, whereby the river can be tamed without a sacrificial offering. Dumfries' fairs are an important part of its heritage, they say. The shows must go on.
Everything is a spectacle
Mitch Miller is another descendant of the Borders family whose van Geraldine once stood on her tiptoes to spot. I think they are second cousins twice removed, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Scottish show families are a frenzied web of interconnectedness — a heady brew of Codonas, Wilmots, Millers, Wrights — all related by birth or marriage. You would need some kind of genealogical spreadsheet to sort it all out, and even then your laptop might spontaneously combust.
Mitch’s maternal grandmother was a Biddall: a family who once fed the Victorian taste for melodrama with ghost shows projecting spectres into blacked out tents, and lurid, True Crime reenactments like Maria Martin and the Red Barn Murder.
An artist and archivist, Mitch has discovered footage of his great great grandfather George Biddall in 1909, walking his dogs and handing out free passes to the crowds in Maryport in Cumbria. Showpeople were in the vanguard of the moving image: the first cinematographs were fairground sideshows.
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Not long after, in nearby Cockermouth, George took ill. Aware he was dying, he gave instructions for the carrying out of the coffin from his living wagon to be filmed, too. You can follow his grieving family as they accompany it down the caravan steps. But every so often, the camera pans to capture faces in the crowd. A century before selfies, George understood people would pay good money to see themselves on film. Everything is a spectacle; and the cost of the funeral had to be covered somehow.
Mitch’s childhood was full of kinship and love. But the first book he ever read — Enid Blyton’s Five Have Plenty of Fun, in which George is kidnapped by Gringo, the evil fairground owner — taught him an early lesson about the way his culture could be misrepresented.
A “nerdy” boy, with NHS specs, his showground roots were one more beanbag to hurl in the carnival of cruelty that was an 80s’ Scottish classroom. At the fair, looking after the sideshows, girls who ignored him at school would try to catch his eye; but he never knew what to say to them.
At Edinburgh University, and later working in the public sector, Miller kept his cultural roots hidden from all but his most trusted friends. Today, though, he and his wife Emma live back on a Glasgow yard — a former foundry near Glasgow’s Parkhead Forge — with their five-year-old daughter Lena. There, Mitch devotes much of his time to mapping threatened landscapes and communities - including those of his fellow Showpeople - through beautiful and complex illustrations he calls “dialectograms”.
Along with fellow artist TS Beall, he has also co-founded Fair Scotland, a charity which promotes fairground culture, and advocates for the country’s 8,000 Showpeople.
Earlier this year, the organisation began compiling a list of “red” and “black” fairs to draw attention to the decline of events once at the heart of Scottish life. The black fairs are those it’s already too late to save, like the one that gave its name to the fortnight in July, when the factories would empty out, the smog would lift from the city’s shoulders, and those workers who were not going “Doon the Watter” would strike out for the wurlitzer wooziness of Glasgow Green.
The Glasgow Green fair was given its Royal Charter in 1190, evolving from a cattle and horse market to a sprawling amusement mecca. For most of the 20th century, it thrived in Fleshers’ Haugh on the east of the park. But then, in the 1990s, it was forced to move a short distance to make way for five-a-side pitches, and not long after that it was moved again after complaints from its new neighbours about the noise. Throughout the early years of the 21st Century, it continued to be slotted around the park like a peg on a chequers’ board, becoming smaller and less visible with every iteration until — in 2017 — the lights that once set the Clyde aglow were snuffed out forever.
The red fairs are those which are threatened but not yet lost. Fair Scotland reckons that, of the 200 that take place in Scotland up to a quarter are at risk. “Traditionally, every show family would have its run — events that it attended every year,” says Mitch. “The runs would be made up of a spine of big events — the Lammas Fair in St Andrews, the 13-week Burntisland Fair — along with a scattering of smaller ones: Hawick, Gala, Jedburgh. But that’s becoming increasingly unsustainable. St Andrews is threatened; so is Keith.”
The Dumfries fairs are important, not only because they are linchpins of the season, but because their disappearance would cut the number of Scotland’s remaining street fairs by a third.
There are other pressures on fairs, too: the snapping up of land for housing; competition from more corporate, all-year-round amusement parks and the steady trickle of younger Showpeople into jobs with steady incomes. But “a kind of old school municipal collectivism” plays its part, along with a system which — uniquely in Europe — requires them to secure a public entertainment licence. Councils can raise the price of these licences, or even revoke them, with little notice.
“Whereas in England events like Newcastle’s Hoppings and the King’s Lynn Mart are embraced as part of the towns’ rich histories, Scotland’s Showpeople are often treated as a nuisance: a bunch of dodgy fly-by-nights coming in with their dodgy goldfish,” Mitch says.
The rest of the year, the two exist as separate entities — the fair on the road, the land trodden by other feet -—but, when they come together, a kind of alchemy occurs. “Churches tend to be found on sites considered sacred for generations, and something similar goes on with fairs,” Mitch says. “Moving them even half a mile changes the way people see them; how willing they are to give them a go.”
"A day when the daffodils are dancing and the gulls in fine voice"
12pm, Tuesday, March 18. Albert Reid and I have driven to Dumfries, the big round faces of Mickey and Minnie, guiding us safely through the sun-spattered Galloway Hills like a pair of manic St Christopher’s.
As we arrived in the market town, he pointed out St Michael’s Church, where many of the grave stones bear Show family names, and the suspension bridge, also known as Biddalls’ Bridge, because it is situated near the Biddalls’ “spot”. Research by TS Beall tends to confirm the family story that — back in 1875 — the Biddalls also helped fund it, so workers at the Rosefield tweed mills could cross over to the fair when their shift ended.
Now, on the Whitesands, Albert is trying to manoeuvre his roundabout into a tight spot between two green painted lines which mark out his allocated footage.
As the Showpeople organise themselves, they engage in some light argy bargy. Maggie’s sister, Penny — owner of the hook-a-duck stall to Albert’s left — is upset because he was late and she can’t hang up her prizes until he is properly in position (the roundabout is on wheels; her stall, once decorated, is too heavy to lift). The owner of the food van to Penny’s left is upset because she thinks Penny is blocking the sightline to her hatch. The fair’s lessee, Raynor Codona wanders along Whitesands like a harassed father, soothing his fractious weans.
Raynor wants to get on with setting up his gorgeous 1953 “Coronation Waltzer” — a seven-hour operation by all accounts — while his brother Douglas is focused on the logistics of the Yankee Flyer, which flings its riders from side to side. Douglas — as unkempt as Raynor is dapper — is rifling through blocks of wood trying to find the precise size and heft required to support each section.
In September 2023, they had just finished setting up when police officers brought tidings of Storm Agnes’ approach. “We had to dismantle the rides and wait until the rain passed,” Raynor says. “It took a lot of sweat and manpower to get everything back up again in time for us opening on the Thursday night.” Today, however, the Nith is flowing so sweetly through its sloping dales, it’s difficult to imagine it swollen and furious.
When the Showpeople are not arguing, they are rallying to each other’s aid. It is a pleasure to watch them. There are half a dozen men helping Albert unfold his taco. Mitch, who is making a dialectogram of the fair, teaches me the words for the different parts. The roundabout itself is a “standing bottom”, which means its cars are attached to a spinning base, as opposed to hanging, as chairplanes do, from a revolving top. The wooden spokes that extend out from the middle are “rafters”, the luminously painted pieces linking the rafters, “headboards”, and the cover that turns the roof into an upside down ice cream cone, the “tilt”. The multi-coloured lightbulbs are cabochons: polished jewels which will soon light up the night sky. Some of the bulbs on Albert’s roundabout are not working and there’s a horse which isn’t galloping as it should; but the problems are quickly fixed. “If there was ever a zombie apocalypse then a show yard is where I’d want to be,” TS Beall told me earlier, “because Showpeople can turn their hands to anything.”
I walk from the Booster — a 40m high ride that swings like a pendulum, and is rumoured to cost more than £450,000 — towards the mini dodgems, a big boot fun house, and the painted clowns that shake their gaping mouths from side to side. Kevin Carter, a self-parodic Puddleglum, is unpacking giant teddies and inflatable Spidermen for his sideshow, Treasured Gifts, and complaining about the modern taste for thrills and spills. “Everyone wants the rides faster, faster, faster,” he says, “that’s not how it used to be.”
His stall is split into three parts: the furthest left is the lowest tech: a row of coloured metal buckets into which punters throw balls (or more likely miss) The buckets are heirlooms bought 80 years ago by Kevin’s grandmother. The middle part contains dart boards while the furthest right is for shooting. “We used to have a proper range until the Scottish government said: ‘You have to get a licence,’ and I thought ‘stuff that’ and turned my wee guns into crossbows, which are actually more powerful,” he says.
Kevin has been coming to Dumfries since he was a boy. He remembers the salmon jumping in the water, the conkers falling from the chestnut trees, and oh, the way the Whitesands became a river of people as thick and fast-flowing as the Nith itself. There are no queues now, but the same loyal families do turn up year after year. At 59, Kevin is now onto the great grandchildren. “I wouldn’t swap my way of life for nothing,” he says. “I love the banter and arguing with people. A wee while ago, someone shouted to me: ‘I’ll be back on Thursday for a go,’ and I shouted back: ‘Well bring yer money, then, I’m no’ here for a holiday’.”
*****************
“The fairs brighten up our dark evenings”
The Showpeople are nostalgic not merely for a way of life they fear is slipping from their grasp, but for the connection they feel to a town that has always been more than a pit-stop. That connection is cemented by conflict. When WWII was declared in September 1939, many of the families were already in Dumfries in advance of the Rood fair which was cancelled along with most others because of the blackouts. They spent the war parked up on the Green Sands. Raynor’s father was among those who helped build Heathhall aerodrome. “Dumfries is like the breath you take for granted,” Raynor says. “When we arrive here in March, it’s like ah, we’re home again.”
This loyalty is returned by many residents. Back in her chalet, Geraldine told me about a boy who used to help her run a goldfish stall. “He must have been eight or nine when he started. I would say to him: ‘Will you help me carry the poles?’ And he would bring me the poles. And then I would say: ‘I need water for the fish’ and he would go and fetch water. Every March, that wee boy would be down at the buses, waiting for me. He grew up, had a family, and then one day I heard he’d died. It broke my heart. I cried like he was one of my own.”
The problems with the Nith are not new: there has been flooding for more than a century as Fair Scotland photographs of floating stalls from the 1910s can testify. But climate change has made it worse. A build-up of silt, too. You can see it close to the weir: a small sand island from which vegetation sprouts; yet for environmental reasons it can’t be dredged.
The current flood prevention scheme —with its brick walls and glass panels — has been fought over since 2010. Many local residents are angry about the loss of car parking space and fears that it will block views of the river.
In 2018, after 6,000 people signed a petition, a public inquiry was held. By the time the Scottish government granted permission, independent councillor David Slater says, the design was already out of date. Delayed by Covid, work is scheduled to start later this year, with an estimated completion date of 2030.
Slater used to own a pub on the Whitesands so he is not blasé about the impact of the floods. But he believes other schemes such as self-rising walls in Cockermouth and Spakenberg in the Netherlands are less obtrusive and, importantly, would not push the Showpeople off the land.
The council has held “design liaison workshops” with Fair Scotland and the Showmen’s Guild, but Slater is not convinced. “The fairs brighten up our dark evenings,” he says. “They’re part of our history and our heritage, and [the council] wants to take them away.”
“The Show Must Go On”
Thursday, March 20: two minutes after opening. Five-year-old Everleigh Graham has already bought candy floss and hooked a duck, and is now clambering on board Albert’s roundabout, unveiled in all tis glory. She runs around, trying to choose — the top deck of the bus? Cinderella’s pumpkin coach? Mater from Cars? — before plumping for a police motorcycle. She holds on tight as her mother takes her photograph. “That is GOOD driving,” Albert shouts, as he honks the horns of the other vehicles.
Close by, Jackson Jankiewicz, also five, is going round in a mini wheel, watched by his grandmother Joyce who, a blink of the eye ago, brought her own children here, and a blink of an eye before that, came herself. The ride’s owner Richie Wilmot tells me about his first time here, as a 21-year-old newly married to his 18-year-old bride. “We ran a wee snack bar together. We were just kids,” he laughs.
Richie has been admiring a sign hung over the entrance to the suspension bridge. Designed by artist Martin O’Neill and crafted by Showman Preston Irvine, it reads: “The Show Must Go On,” the letters dotted with cabochons. “It’s very striking, isn’t it?” Richie says. “It’ll get people talking.”
I cross the bridge to see the fair frozen in space and time. From the east bank, it is a sequined ribbon, binding cobalt blue sky and water. Each ride is perfectly reflected in the glassy surface; I imagine river sprites seeking their own thrills in the depths below.
Then, I cross back to the sweat and the smells and the noise. The Coronation Waltzer is heaving. Through the thump of the music, I hear the girls scream: “Faster, faster”. Through the flash of the lights, I see Raynor, his sleeves rolled up, spinning the cars for all he is worth.
