The Whitsun Funfair

By Hugh Petrie (May 2003)

Reproduced by kind permission of London Borough of Barnet

I found evidence for the fair three years ago in the Barnet Press of 1879. An established, annual, but previously unreported, event lasting from Thursday to Sunday, near The George in the fields where Stanley and Beresford Roads now stand. Attractions included an exhibition of curios and “wonders such as have never before been seen, and will not appear in this place again” (which proved popular with East Finchley's youth), a shooting gallery, and acrobats. However The George had some genteel neighbours who were not enamoured by the sounds the vulgar ‘broken drum and an unmelodious trumpet’ announcing each performance. Their complaints appeared in the same article and I assumed the fair had had to cease. But, as before, it had simply not been reported.

Two months ago I found a report in the Finchley Free Press of 1897. In fields behind the Five Bells, it came “unannounced and anticipated”. The reporter, Karl Penn, describes the Washington Post March being played on the “brazen trumpets of the organ”, as “young men who had brought their sweethearts grew reckless in their expenditure on swings and merry-go-rounds”, and rifles snapped at “cork balls that danced on their respective sprays of water, like nymphs of the fountain”.

I looked in the papers in May and June the following years. The genteel neighbours of the Five Bells enjoyed the sound of the organ as much as their Market Place predecessors had enjoyed the trumpet and broken drum. The following years the fair was unreported, and I suspect really didn’t happen. “Considering the meagre opportunities for rational enjoyment, and the dullness of many lives, the last that condemns them shall be Karl Penn”, wrote our reporter, a sentiment with which I concur. At least the march can be heard at http://members.tripod.com/rescue_1/Patriotic/default.htm