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Carters Steam Fair For Sale

June 6, 2022
by the gentle author

Bookings are open for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOUR until the end of July

Learning the sad news that 2022 is to be the final season for Carters Steam Fair led me to recall when photographer Colin O’Brien & I went along to meet Anna Carter, who started the fair with her husband John more than forty years ago and runs it today with her sons and their families. Now it is up for sale and maybe somebody reading this would like to buy it? Britain’s only vintage steam-powered fair, Carters is a national treasure containing a magnificent array of traditional fairground rides of historic importance all in full working order.

Colin & I discovered the fair already set up on the grass in Victoria Park waiting for the crowds to arrive and resembling your dream of what a fairground should be – immaculately cared for, dripping with light bulbs and garnished with flamboyant lettering, and every surface shining with neat paintwork in the dominant colours of butter and oxblood. The rides were arranged around the enormous merry-go-round which is the proud centrepiece, while splendid vintage lorries in tip top condition stood between the gleaming attractions and, at the fringes of the encampment, we found the personal caravans of the Carter family.

When we arrived, Anna was holding court at a council meeting of her extended family, like a general preparing for battle, but, once the conference was over, we were privileged to sit outside her old caravan with its handsome leaded windows and take tea, while she told us the story of Carters Steam Fair – a family business on a grand scale with three generations involved and travelling the country twenty-eight weeks of the year.

“My late husband collected things,” revealed Anna with spectacular understatement, when I asked her how the fair started, “he collected slot machines, horn gramophones, 78 records, enamel signs and American cars – anything interesting. And one day, we made some money and he said we could buy a house or we could buy the gallopers. So we opted for the gallopers.”

‘Gallopers’ is the proper but less-well-known term for a merry-go-round, and the gallopers in question sat across the grass from us as we sipped our tea. Swathed in a green tarpaulin concealing the decorated horses within, only the painted conical top was visible and it looked for all the world like some enormous cake, just waiting to be unwrapped. “We bought it off an amusement park in 1976 and it fell apart on the way home, “ Anna recalled fondly, “It had been built in 1895 and we even managed to buy the steam engine that had been taken off it, three miles down the road.” She and her husband restored the gallopers together, with John rebuilding the structure and mechanics and Anna recreating the authentic paint finishes.

“He was the son of a policeman and I was the daughter of a chef,” she explained, “My father had some land and used to let John hold stock car races on it. He was five years older than me and he was leaving Maidenhead College of Art when I left, so we never met then but got together later after we both had failed marriages and were divorced.” The couple had three sons together, making a family of six children including offspring from their previous marriages.

Already, John and Anna had been organising steam fairs, air shows and vintage car rallies, and it was possible to show their gallopers at these events but, within a couple of years, they acquired a chairoplane, some sideshows and juvenile rides and were doing tiny village fairs in their own right. Before long, Carters Steam Fair was playing twenty-eight different locations each summer and the routine of the travelling became established, moving each Tuesday to a new location.

It was was John’s unexpected death at fifty-eight that was the catalyst for Anna to take the running of the fair upon herself – yet by then she had grown-up sons involved. “When John died, I sat down with the boys and said what do you want to do?” she confided to me, “It was a unanimous decision that we carry on.” Today, Seth runs the dodgems, the octopus, the skid and the coconut shy, while Joby runs the gallopers, the steam yachts, the swing boats and the jungle thriller ark. “We do respect each other’s space but the grandchildren run everywhere and are little pests,” she informed me with pleasure, “when my children were young all their friends used to work in the fair, and now my children’s children’s friends work here whenever we need extra staff.”

“It’s my baby,” Anna confessed to me in summation, casting her eyes around at the magical fairground that has been the focus of her family endeavour for so many years. With extraordinary stamina and strength of personality, Anna has kept the show on the road, negotiating labyrinthine regulations and red tape. Yet as much as she is an astute hard-working business woman, Anna is a romantic in love with the romance of the fairground, and it is thanks to the vision she shared with John that Carters exists today as Britain’s last steam fair, keeping traditional rides working which would otherwise be destined for the museum or the scrapheap.

“We’re not interested in modern rides, we love the winter months when we do the restoration – there’s always something tatty and in need of repainting,” she revealed to me, “By October, you are sick of being on the road, it’s muddy and cold and you think how nice to go home – but then when spring comes you always want to go off again. This is my life and I don’t want to do anything else. It means so much to me, we live and breathe it.”

“It’s my baby”

Anna Carter with her dog, Saffy the Staffy

Photographs copyright © Estate of Colin O’Brien

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Colin O’Brien at the Fair

A New Season For Carters Steam Fair

14 Responses leave one →
  1. Andy permalink
    June 6, 2022

    Very evocative.

  2. June 6, 2022

    A wonderful story in which time seems to be preserved forever.

    Love & Peace
    ACHIM

  3. Pat W permalink
    June 6, 2022

    Thank you for this article, everyone should have the opportunity to experience Carter’s, I do hope it doesn’t disappear. It’s everything you expect a fair to be yet rarelynis. I took my young nephews when it was in Chiswick many years ago. A notice was pinned up, summarised, ‘if you’re thinking of running away with the fair, please apply here’. Lovely. Save it for the nation please.

  4. Jill Wilson permalink
    June 6, 2022

    I wonder if the best future for Carter’s would be to find a permanent home for it? There is a massive interest in anything ‘vintage’ at the moment and it would be such a shame if it was broken up.

    Good luck Carter’s!

  5. Helen permalink
    June 6, 2022

    I really hope someone worthy comes forward to save this wonderful piece of fairground history. My husband is a huge fan of Carter’s and I contacted them to buy one of their books for him. Well, the wrong book was sent, and when I called them again to arrange exchange, I actually spoke to Anna herself. She was absolutely lovely. We ended up having a bit of a chat and told me I could keep the wrong book even though I insisted on sending it back! And the right one arrived a day or two later. Hub couldn’t have happier!

  6. June 6, 2022

    wonderful can almost smell the fried onions and candyfloss

  7. David Antscherl permalink
    June 6, 2022

    Wonderfully evocative images. The typography and paintwork alone are worth the price of admission. Hopefully someone will step up to keep this unique fun fair going.

  8. Emma Hardy permalink
    June 6, 2022

    So very sad. A huge part of my children’s childhood, they’ve gone nearly every year since 1990 ! Even as adults. A lovely part of summer holidays going to Priory Park Hornsey , finishing with fireworks, chips and candy floss.

  9. MD Smith permalink
    June 6, 2022

    What about Beamish, up near Durham? Would they buy it?

  10. Marcia Howard permalink
    June 6, 2022

    A very sad day indeed. My married home was at Pinkneys Green in Maidenhead for 30 years, and Carters was ‘our Fair’. I learned a few weeks back that the Fair was going to be it’s final appearance at Pinkneys Green, but when my children were growing up, we also went every year to the Knowl Hill Steam Fair not 5 miles away. I’ve even taken friends children there too over the years. Carters will be sadly missed, especially in Berkshire where they’ve had a presence for many years.

  11. June 6, 2022

    Always loved visiting Carter’s Steam Fair when they came to Clissold Park in Stoke Newington. Sad to hear it’s closing. Hoping it finds a good home where it can be preserved, even if it can’t continue working.

  12. Jo Ross permalink
    June 6, 2022

    This is very sad news. I have such happy memories of Carters when they used to visit Turnham Green, Chiswick in the early 90’s. My son who would have been aged 8 or 9 at the time found it magical – especially the big pennies that he won on the old-fashioned arcade machines. I sincerely hope a buyer can be found.

  13. Nick Tisi permalink
    June 7, 2022

    Carters are, as we speak, packing up round the corner from me in Promenade Park, Maldon after a wonderful few weeks here.

    I managed to get my 3 & 4 year old girls there five times during the stay, and we loved every minute!

  14. Nigel Hawkes permalink
    October 29, 2022

    I dreamt for over 30 years of riding again on what we knew in the 1960s as the “Aero Planes”-this was a ride at the annual Derby Day big fair. You could control the vertical ascent and descent and, of course, most of us boys took the planes up to the very top! I eventually got my wish when we visited Carters at a country event in Surrey; they call this ride the “Dive Bombers” and I’m ashamed to say that the years had not been kind to me and I panicked on the ride and largely kept the plane on the low level!

    Surely this National Treasure can be saved and most importantly kept together on a permanent site?

    Beamish has been mentioned-an excellent idea and very appropriate; the addition of this fair would be a real additional crowd puller.

    Another possible would be one of the larger steam collections; or how about a heritage railway?

    Last but not least, what about one of the larger National Trust properties?

    What must not be allowed to happen is for the collection to be broken up-that would be a National Disgrace.

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