to not like the fair?

[FrillyMilly]

I don't have any phobia of rides. I love big theme parks like Alton Towers. However I hate the fairgrounds that turn up twice a year and are put up in a matter of hours. I don't trust that they are safe and I don't really want Dd to go to them. Shes only 3 so hasn't really been an issue yet but I'm sure people in RL think I'm being a bit PFB when I share my dislike of them. She has been on a little ride once with her cousin and I felt uneasy the whole time. I was glad she didn't enjoy it so it was stopped and she was let off. When I was at school an older child died on the fair at our town and my mum doesn't particularly like them so I have probably got it from that. Im not sure how am I going I feel when she's a teen and all her friends are going but whilst shes little I would rather keep her away.

So is it justified or am I being PFB?

Now I don't like rides at all. I hate being that scared and I hate the price of them. But I quite like the travelling fairs - they are part of the changing seasons like Bonfire Night and Christmas. There is one in our town that has been happening in one form or another for hundreds of years. But that certainly doesn't go up overnight - it starts going up over a week before and they don't completely clear out for ages.

I have always taken them along there - I like the noise and the lights and even the smell of candy floss but i never go on anything now that they are too old for the carousel . I do have a bit of a problem with the fact that my older 2 like to go alone . I insisted on taking DD with her friends...and picking them up! She wasn't impressed. DS1 did go with his mates but he's 14 and there was a lot of them together.

Re ride safety - I think the stats show that they are fairly safe these days. I am more concerned about the crowds and the amt of drink that gets taken before some of the punters even get there

I managed to lose DS2 when I took him last week. Had to ask some nice PCSOs to look for him with me - they were brilliant! He was finally found wandering in tears by our neighbour who just happened to be passing with his family. Horrible!

YANBU to not like travelling fairs if you don't enjoy them, but YABU to pin it on safety. Personally, I would trust a ride that is stripped down every two weeks by someone who knows what they are doing far more than a permanently-sited ride whose maintenance schedule might be diluted to pare costs down.

And even if ride safety was put to one side, I still enjoy just walking round a busy fair, smelling the candyfloss and hotdogs and admiring the artwork on the haunted house ride.

The Goose, Rhino? :)

I do't mind them I grew up in Bridgwater though where big fair is one of only two nights it's worth being there (well fair is 4 nights but that would cost ££££)- I don't recall crime issues, even attending a school on the road and living close by but it is one of the most established ones. I do think people get confused between fairs and gypsies- DH and I were accused same way because of the carnivals, yet we're bog standard borings who just perform on a moving vehicle is all.
Although I guess if we bring in tourists then a % of those might be dodgy gits trying to take advantage so crime would go up that way.

I let my boys on fair and TP rides, but then I am not bothered by them for myself either. Completely desensitised.

We never go. I hated them as a kid...they scared me and they still do. It's not the rides...it's the dark undercurrent of....something that you can feel in them.

Loads of horror films and stories don't take place in fairgrounds for nothing you know. Stephen King loves them as a setting.

Its the full-on feeling of "you're at the FAIR....you have to be HAPPY and have a GOOD TIME" that I dont like....like clowns. They're too cheerful. Sweet and sticky and sickly and wrong.

YANBU.

I was never allowed to go and it did me no harm!
Crime rates here go up when the fair's in town, at our PACT meeting we were told by the officer that they'd stopped a girl as young as 13 with a knife in her bra. We also had trouble with random kids in our backyard attempting to get at the rabbit. The fair came, and we had trouble, the fair went and they didn't come back....

Orm that must have been scary- hugs

Indeed Valhalla - have been organising my second mortgage as we speak.

I'm pissed off at the last one to do the rounds here (we get 5-6 a year). They've left all the chuffing posters they sellotaped up around the place all over town up and buggered off - which really really grinds my gears.

They also generally look really crap... and a quid a ride?! Used to be 20p at the Hoppins when I was a kid!

Thanks peachy! It was. He met my neighbour right at the Penel end of West Street! Thankfully he was too sensible to try and cross the road there.

Rhino Does it start on Friday perchance?

Hate the fair. Kids go with their dad, job done on all fronts:)

For this who complain, I lived within spitting instance of the fairground, and yes crime did go up, but a lot of it was opportunistic locals trying to break into cars and such. Don't just blame travelling people, locals are just as likely to be thieves.

A quid! A quid? Ha ha . I had to pay £6 for DS1 and 2 to go o nthe poxy Wild Mouse. And then DS2 cried all the way round because he was scared .

I have just looked and its already there - finishes on Sunday. Maybe I will get away with not going as DS hasnt mentioned it.

I used to LOVE Hull Fair when I was little. It was almost as good as Christmas.
Staying up late, eating Bob Carvers chips and candy floss or a Toffee Apple. Some of my favourite family memories are from the fair, I can almost smell it now.
It was brilliant, sadly there is nothing like that for my DC only a crappy Waltzer and Bob Sleigh thing that come to a carpark near us a couple of times a year.

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