"The Fun of the Fair"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

"The Fun of the Fair"

By BART SUTHERLAND

AN almost full moon had commenced her placid skv-ride, and was even now making a ladder of light to more heavenly lands—a scale for the minds of men to rise to the solitary sanctuary of chaste Diana. On each side of the drive that margins Mission Bay there was a parking of cars, so continuous as to be metropolitan, while a prodigious golden snake of movement insinuated itself round the dark-fringed cape that blocked the city light. One felt that these modern men, affected by the magic of the night, had not just said prosaically, " Let us go for a spin in the moonlight!" but rather, " The gods and goddesses do indeed still live. Let lis go and pay homage to the healing creature of the night!" True, they had left the whole rippling line of silvershot water to her undisputed sway, but they were surely even now withdrawn into some dark grave, like the Greeks of old, there to robe suitably and immaculately; and in the end they would surely come and make supplication to the nivstical being who could undoubtedly shed blessings on their lives. A music surged into the air, but alas! it was certainly not the unknown cadence „of incantation. Rather was it that sentimentally familiar, but none the less moving favourite of our time, " Moonlight and Hoses," fortissimo, animato/ furioso —a blend of everything making for resolution, rather than sanctity. Grcwn-ups Succumb! '

At once minds slid down the argent ladderway of soliloquy to earth, and returned to their real resolution —to go and see " this merry-go-round." These adults, far from following an ancient earth ritual, were wandering . about, intruders in a glittering domain of speed and chance that should have been entirely given up to youth. They were even gauging the possibilities of entertainment with a reminiscent eye; and their faces, reflections at first of a dull fear that they might make fools of themselves, were in the end completely illumined by a defiant veneer. Convention would shortly be cast to the winds, and under the spell of the hypnotic lights and the sensual music, tew could resist a triumphant dreamer's ride through the yielding battlefields of space. The children already in possession of the fiery steeds were an excellent example to uphold the ideas of the man ■who divided people into two classes—those with backbone, and those without. Some of them, recalling Rupert Brooke's line, " Lithe children, lovelier than a dream," sat their mounts at ease, brandishing reins with grace — knights, gallant cmsaders, ladies on paltreys. But were they not, perhaps, ensnared in the las;y romance of the senses, while those others who clung, craven-eyed, to ignominious brass stanchions, were in possession of the vast imagination of. the. intellect, knowing already that "were all men happy revellings would cease"? The only people who looked really at ease were the Maoris from the adjoining bay. Used as they were to community life, this carnival was probably to them the evolution of the community games and tournaments which they staged to entertain visiting tribes; the Atlantic Flyer but a scientific variation of the plden Maori., the swing made of vinesj that was pitched at the hazardous cliff's-edge for the perpetual amusement of the young. One intent young man actually won a shaving mirror at the quoit-throwing show, to the placid applause of his buxom wife, and numerous soulful-eyed offspring. Did the showman know that here was a foeman worthy of his steel —that he had probably inherited a surer eye than the bookworm pakehas, from ancestors who could see distant stars with the naked eye f Looking Back "The Blue Danube"—all out!— drew eyes to the merry-go-round again. Its astonishingly modern lighting system, electric bulbs veiled with the very latest in parchment shades, reminded me that in my youth, not a hundred rears ago, and in riot-so-very-rural England, I had actually seen one lit by old-fashioned flares. These flares ; gave me one of my first lessons on the mortality of man. For who could say, if I went into the circle of that falselydeductive pleasure, that I might not be turned, all unwillingly, into a premature Joan of Arc, without the glory of her achievement? And the unusual sight of elephants' legs' was no more inspiring, for in the queer ragbag knowledge of the child mind I had stored the indisputable history-book fact that a wicked 'Eastern potentate had once turned a herd of elephants loose to trample a rival army underfoot. The only , fcick to be got was out of a drink of sherbet the milk-shake of thosa days. And that largely because it was. a forbidden drink, the adults of the family holding that it was made in nn English factory, most probably by girls with dirty hands, whereas I verily knew that it was issued from the palace of the Caliph of Bagdad. Nevertheless, I felt that I was telling a wicked, protective lie when I assured

When the Spirit of Seaside Carnival Overrules Convention

the people nt home that 1 had enjo.ved mvself, and I-cannot to this day tell whether I have really enjoyed the show of li.'e. But 1 give my thanks to the showmen tor their small delights. Though they call themselves by the dull, modern titles of showman or director, they come of a long, romantic line who have been called by many light and pleasing names —bard, jester, jongleur, troubadour, clown, all nomadic from the ordinary routine, and bearing the guerdon of temporary bliss; all truly assessing the human longing for a little unalloyed pleasure, and jauntily welcoming and appeasing it. The father of "Lord" George Sanger, the famous showman, when a young man, was walking from one of the southern Counties to London, when he was taken by the press-gang. He fought at Trafalgar, losing a limb. When he returned his relations, being respectable tradesmen, • did not want anything to do with the poor crippled young man. So he joined the noble army of vagabonds, took peepxhows round the' English countryside. That was the beginning of "the greatest show on earth." Most people nowadays, so treated, would breatne red-hot sedition; but his son records that he never spoke with anything but respect of his king. There is something sweet, mystical and triumphant, I think, in the spectacle of this injured man rising from the ruin of his life and going about" to- amuse other people. And —in spite of the worldly assessment of commercialism —it is this spirit that all true showmen possess.