‘A whiff of burnt sugar and a chill in the air can only mean one thing - it’s Hull Fair!’
WILL YOU OR WON’T YOU?: The Big Wheel
This Place, a column by Vicky Foster
Hull Fair
We have a kind of weather here in Hull that exists nowhere else in the country – in fact, nowhere else in the world. It’s not weather that’s distinguished by a certain kind of rain, or wind blowing in from a particular direction. It’s not linked to the first frost of the new season, or the last fine day of summer. It sits outside of those things, almost intangible. But we will sense it. There’ll come a certain tang of dying leaves in the air, a certain chill finding its way under your now-too-thin coat, an acknowledgement that it’s time to get out your boots, and we in Hull will turn our noses into the breeze, almost catching a whiff of burnt sugar that isn’t quite there yet. Half-imagining, half-remembering, half-caught wafts of dance music or chiming brass pipes, we’ll say: it’s Hull Fair weather.
For a few weeks in late September and early October each year, the city changes. The long bodies of caravans and trucks with half-folded Ferris wheels or waltzers or burger stands or hook-a-ducks start to make their way through the city, sitting in lines of traffic. The demon face of a ghost-train hoarding peeks out from under a tarpaulin as you pass it on the bus. The dimmed white bulbs of The Rotor breach the wooden sides of a wagon as you walk the kids to school. They all make their way towards Walton Street and West Park, where they settle for a while.
SO MUCH TO SEE AND DO: Crowds enjoying the opening night of Hull Fair 2022
The twice-weekly market and car-boot sale get cancelled. Sports fans visiting the MKM Stadium have to find somewhere else to park their cars. All the electronic signs on the main roads start to display the fair dates. People old enough to remember when Hull Fair was strictly one week long will say ‘oh yeah, you get two Saturdays now, don’t you?’ The special bus timetables are announced. You make plans with friends and family – who’s going with who on what night – ‘we’ll meet at your house and walk from there’ or ‘she’s getting the bus with her mates on the Tuesday.’
People who’ve driven past during the day will say ‘the big wheel’s up now’ or ‘they’re half up, just on the pavement at the moment’. The tension builds. Who’ll go on what rides? Will it be cold enough – ‘it won’t be right if I can’t wear my big coat.’ Will the big bungee ball ride be there again this year? The limbo dancer? Will the bratwurst stall still be the first thing you see as you turn in off Spring Bank? Will I be able to find that little cart that sells the bags of almonds and pecans, coated in warm sugar and cinnamon? Will I be able to remember, as I stare up at the mesmerising movement of motorised arms spinning in the crisp October air, that I won’t like it once I get up there, or will I throw caution to the wind, give it one last go, and emerge, white-faced, head ringing, swearing never again?
ICONIC: A merry-go-round
Here are some facts you can find online: Hull Fair is the largest travelling fair in Europe. It has over 250 rides and will be visited by up to 800,000 people over its eight-day duration. In 1993, it celebrated its 700th birthday, and the only years it hasn’t taken place were during the world wars and the Covid lockdown in 2020.
But the truth about Hull Fair isn’t something you find in facts and numbers. It’s more legend, folklore. Half-remembered, half-imagined stories and snippets that spread out across tea-tables and classroom desks. That are overheard on buses or in the sandwich queue. When I was a kid some of my friends used to prefer a cash payoff from their parents over a trip to the fair and I know some adults now who don’t like it, who won’t go. But if they live in this city, the fair will touch them whether they wander through it or not.
FAMILIAR SIGHTS: Stalls, the Helter Skelter, and the Fun House
As for me, I’ll pick my day, soon after the tension breaks, and the fair has sparked into life, blaring out light and music, fried onion, candy floss, petrol. Laser lights cutting the air, slashing across clouds. Cars and buses and people streaming inwards towards the pulsing heart of it. Feet picking their way across the muddy park or past the cemetery, over the railway lines. Buggies and prams, wheelchairs and mobility scooters, babies strung in harnesses across parent’s chests.
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When I was younger, I was a First-Friday fan. I couldn’t wait. I had to be there among the crowd that christened the mud with new footprints. But nowadays I like to draw the anticipation out a bit longer by waiting until the Monday or Tuesday. I’ll enjoy the noise from a distance, drive past a couple more times now the barriers are up, the road is closed, the street is crammed with stalls that stream helium balloons and spill cuddly toys and toffee apples and giant jelly laces. How about you? Have you already been? Are you getting the bus with her on Tuesday or meeting at ours and walking from there? I’ll see you by the carousel, or from the jolting seat of a bumper car, or over the top of an improbably large pink bubble of spun sugar.