The Gallopers

[wolfinthewood]

For three days every November the Fair comes to Loughborough. And every year along with the Fair comes the great steam roundabout; not powered by steam any more, but still with its carved gallopers and its organ. The legend round the canopy reads: 'Proud Old Time Riding Horses Rode By All With Joy'. I love that. The person who drafted those words had a good ear for rhythmic prose.

I think that same roundabout used to be one of the two that always came to the Midsummer Fair at Cambridge when I was a student in the seventies. I think I recognise it by the three carved and painted showgirls built into the case of the organ. I think, though, that it was a different set of gallopers that used to come to Pinner Fair in Middlesex when I was a child. But the music and the horses were in much the same style.

I don't always go to Loughborough Fair. Some years I lie low, and curse the traffic problems and the continual noise of the rides, mercifully distant from where I live, but still very audible, especially at night. But if I do pass through the Fair, as I did today, I always take a ride on the gallopers: it connects me to the child I once was, and to generations of riders going back to the the time of my great-grandparents in the High Victorian Age.


Jackanapes was not absolutely free from qualms, but having once mounted the Black Prince he stuck to him as a horseman should. During the first round he waved his hat, and observed with some concern that the Black Prince had lost an ear since last Fair; at the second, he looked a little pale but sat upright, though somewhat unnecessarily rigid; at the third round he shut his eyes. During the fourth his hat fell off, and he clasped his horse's neck. By the fifth he had laid his yellow head against the Black Prince's mane, and so clung anyhow till the hobby-horses stopped, when the proprietor assisted him to alight, and he sat down rather suddenly and said he had enjoyed it very much.

Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841–1885)

from Jackanapes (1883)


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Comments

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I've been meaning to reply to this comment for ages!

Your Loughborough gallopers are beautiful. I love how they have that golden colour to them. The site says that that carousel sometimes comes to London; I wonder if I've ridden it? It certainly looks familiar.

The carousel on the Mall is indeed here: http://www.nca-usa.org/psp/NationalMall/
This is a 1947-built carousel, and a very fine one too-- the horses are nicely individual, with a couple of zebras and a green, scaly dragon who is an especially sought-after mount. That carousel replaced an older one which my DC friend speedlime and I remember fondly from our childhood.

I also really likethis one (http://www.nca-usa.org/psp/WashingtonNationalCathedral/), which is open for one weekend in Spring when the National Cathedral holds its annual fair. It seems to date from about the same period as yours. Though it is smaller and less grand, it does have some interesting creatures (goats! deer! a camel!)

Sorry for the long answer, but I hope this finds you well and merrily going round.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Your nice long answer is interesting - don't worry. As for me, I've had a nasty cough. But I am getting better.

I think you may well have ridden the Noyce gallopers. I believe they travel to a lot of funfairs, and they are a fine set - very memorable.

I like both your Washington carousels - the 1947 one is magnificent, and I like the way the older one has such a variety of animals. I have never seen one quite like that in England.