Thursday, April 30, 2009

All the fun of the fair.




Growing up in Warwick in the sixties, a highlight of the year was Warwick Mop, a funfair that closed the centre of town for a few days. Probably still does. We have a local fair on Victoria Park just about to open and it is reassuring that even in this doomed climate some things remain pretty well unchanged. Sneaking around this morning there are still ERF lorries and Foden's. Old English manufacturers that used to be powered by Gardener 180 diesel engines with a second in the back to power the massive generator needed to run the ‘Bumper Cars’ as we called them. I intend to visit one night very soon and see if the heady smell of candy floss and diesel can take me back to my childhood when i watched in awe, the operators skipping nimbly from one car to the next collecting a shilling off each of us. Of course, it was all in black and white then....

3 comments:

Diplomate said...

yeah - but no bloody jumpers for goal posts, eah ?

Peter Ashley said...

I reckon that Foden logo as on the pink 'un is just about the best lorry logo there was. Up there with Kenworth, of course. Oh, and that Guy Indian chief was good. Ooh and the Albion script was....(slowly helped off muttering and dribbling by white-coated attendants).

Toby Savage said...

Yes, but Peter, how it changed between the pink 'un, 1986/7 and the green 'un, 1989. The marketing men clearly had their way with the new logo introduced in the wake of foreign competition from Scania, Volvo and the mighty Mercedes, All featuring more 'contemporary' logos.