Everyone who lives in Egremont knows it’s not truly Crab Fair, until the funfair shows up.
It’s a staple part of the weekend celebrations that appeals to all ages and it’s one that has been part of the fair’s history for a very long time.
While rides and amusements might seem more like a modern pastime, the funfair is believed to have been part of the town’s 757-year-old for over 100 years.
Multiple generations from several families of showpeople have been regularly coming to the fair and still do so to this day.
Year in, year out, they arrive early and start working come rain or shine to set up their rides, safety test them, and get them ready for fairgoers.
While Crab Fair officially opens on the Friday, the funfair comes on the Wednesday and kicks off celebrations in the town early.
Kendal Reeves, 44, of Glasgow, who looks after the snack bar at the funfair, has been coming to Crab Fair since she was born.
She said: “I was born a showgirl and I’ve been coming all my life to Crab Fair and my parents and my grandad came before myself.
“We have family roots in Cumbria, my mam Valerie was a Whitehaven lass, my dad Victor was born in Carlisle and they lived in Whitehaven in the winter quarters for many years and that’s how he met my mother.
“When they married she came travelling, and they did all the Cumbrian fairs in Cleator Moor, Frizington, Workington and Kells, I couldn’t even tell you how long they’ve been coming to Crab Fair.
“My daddy is now 82 and he just stopped coming around Covid time, but his ride still comes.”
While the funfair is now officially brought to Crab Fair by Taylor’s Funfairs, who hail from Cumbria and are based near Cartmel Racecourse, each ride is brought to the town by different self-employed families.
The Reeves family, Taylors, Broughtons and Slaters have all been coming for generations to Crab Fair, with the Codona’s now on their eighth generation of family attending the fair.
Families tend to work seasonally and during the winter, they store their rides in a yard, where they will maintain them and stay throughout the winter.
While it’s not as common these days, many of the children, including Kendal, would also attend local schools for several weeks while their families moved around the local fairs.
She added: “I was born in Glasgow, but we used to travel that much in Cumbria I went to school here and I’ve travelled most of my life down here, more than where we are based in Glasgow.
“My mother, from what I can remember would always have the snack bar, so me as a brand new wee baby, would be in a Silver Cross pram at the side.
“On showgrounds you’ll see a lot of babies in Silver Cross prams, they’re sturdy and warm and it means they can be taken to work.
“But I went to Hensingham Juniors and Whitehaven School and every time we’d come, we’d go straight in.
“Up to about 10-years-ago, my teacher from Hensingham would come to the fair and see me even when I was an adult.
“But it was fantastic as a child, you’d get to go on all the different rides for nothing and make loads of friends.
“My nephew is eight and when we go to the fairground he’ll just go on something! But we’re always taught to remember our manners, so we ask the ride operator if we can go on and then when you get off, you thank them.
“So he’ll ask if he can go on and one ride he was on, it stopped, and I thought he was going to get off, but oh no, he just went to another seat!
“But the showmen don’t mind, they all know the kids and keep an eye on them, it’s a great community, they do all look after one another.”
Kendal explained that while showpeople travel across country with their fair rides they are not to be confused with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
She said: “We are called showpeople, years and years ago we used to call ourselves Travellers, but then the Gypsies and Roma started calling themselves Travellers.
“A lot of people were thinking we were the same, but the only similarities we have are that we both travel. We have always been known as showpeople, so we try to separate that, so people can understand the difference.
“Nobody else can call themselves a showman, we have a union The Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain and we have a lot of rules and regulations to stick by or we can get penalised.
“We’re here to entertain, back in the day it was all dancing girls, booths, the tallest man or ugliest woman and people used to pay to see it, but now it’s all your thrill rides.
“But we can’t just show up, we have to go to your local council and event holders. Some of the parks we visit, we leave them in a better state than when we arrived.
“If we cut up a grassy park, we’ll fix that, because if we don’t, we won’t be able to come back, we’re running a business.”
Kendal added that while she’s been to fairs across the country, to her, Crab Fair stands out from the crowd.
She said: “I’ve always said for years I’ve loved coming down to Crab Fair. It is one of my favourite places.
“I don’t know what it is about this town, I think it’s because I’ve got roots down here and I like coming down because I’ve got family who live in Whitehaven and Holmrook and I’ve made a lot of good friends here.
“There’s just something about Cumbria that holds a lot for me obviously you meet people from all walks of life but here we always have nice people come up to us.
“People are always interested in the showlife here and it does stick in my mind that I was never treated any different here.
“The school teacher I had treated me like royalty, she made me feel that way. She’d get me to stand up and speak in front of the other children about the showlife. I didn’t get that back home.”
At 16, Kendal left school and started working full time running the fair’s snack bar.
She was taught the basics by her mother and then her father, after her mother passed away when she was 18.
Her father gave her full control of the snack bar a few years later.
She said: “You learn very young in the showman life, you’ll see kids around eight helping put up rides.
“But I do have memories of my mam showing me things to do and my dad too and you pick it up quite easily.
“I had to learn a lot from my dad and you have women’s and men’s jobs with the men outside fixing and doing the dirty stuff and the women inside doing the fixing and what have you, so I got both and I learnt both.
“But we all have the same plots every year, believe it or not, a lot of showmen can look at a bit of tarmac and know where a ride will stand without measuring.
“It’s all in memory, even with my snack bar I know based on parking bays and the trees where I roughly base myself.”
Kendal said she takes a lot of pride in the food that she serves and that while toffee apples aren’t as popular as they once were across the country, at Crab Fair, they remain hugely popular.
She said: “My mam taught me how to make the original toffee apples and they’re not at all like what you get in the supermarkets, they’re just not right.
“But here is one of the main places that I sell out every year and I make them fresh every day.
“We also get people come every year stuff, so we have a dad and son come every year for the foot long German sausage.”
Kendal’s brothers Jackson and Clayton both work as engineers who manufacture the rides – many of which are hand painted and crafted.
They also built Kendal’s snack bar, which she designed for them and rides are typically painted all in the yard where families keep their rides and stay through the winter.
She added: “My brother Clayton went to university in Newcastle and studied to become a welder and engineer, so he does the drawings and designs for them.
“But they learn a lot from their fathers and grandfathers and they get quite handy, and a lot is sanded down and made with fiberglass, most of them are made by hand.”
Behind the scenes, the days are long no matter their role, but Kendal said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
She added: “This isn’t for everybody. A lot of the showpeople can work up to 15 or 20 hour days, but we just keep going because it’s our way of life.
“While the fair might only be open for say three hours, you don’t see the hours behind it. With the weather this week it was horrendous, we were soaked to the skin putting the rides in.
“Most people wouldn’t go out in that, but we do.”
The overall running of the funfair has changed hands several times throughout the years, but the family ties remain strong.
Kendal’s father Victor is the cousin of David Taylor, who runs Taylor’s Funfairs and has been coming to the Crab Fair throughout his life.
The Taylor’s have been looking after the overall fair for the past three years – but they were also the original people to manage the funfair at Crab Fair, making their return a full circle moment.
But the running of the fair was passed over from George Henry Codona to David Taylor, after George Henry decided to step back due to ill health.
George Henry marks the eight generation of Codonas who have been coming to the Crab Fair.
He said: “The name Codona originates from Italy and Switzerland and my family has been coming to Crab Fair for 100 odd years, and I’ve been coming for about 20.
“But we weren’t always Codonas, my mother was a Robertson, and I used to come with them.
“At the very beginning it was Broughtons that come, and my Uncle John James married Margaret Broughton and that’s how Robertson’s came together.
“Then when John James died, that’s how I came to be here, I ran it for quite a while, and then when I got diagnosed with cancer over Covid, David Taylor asked me if he wanted me to run it for you, and I said well you’re up here, so it’ll suit you better than me. “
He added that he is proud to be a showman and that being able to make people happy was an important part of his role.
George Henry said: “I remember I got sent to private school, but I wouldn’t say I lasted at private school, I got expelled for fighting because I got called a Gypsy, all my life I’ve stuck up for being a showman and not a Gypsy.
“Because we travel around the country, it’s just our way of life, but everywhere we go we pay for what we do.
“I am proud of who I am and I like to see people happy. If everyone is happy who comes to the fair, then I’m happy, it’s always nice to bring a smile to people’s faces.
“It doesn’t always happen, because they can get a wee bit too much drink in them and want to fight, but that’s just life.
“But I love all the fairs I do equally and I do go back to most of my fairs.”
David Taylor’s son Nathanial, 39, has come to Crab Fair for the third time this year and said it was a good feeling for his dad to be back looking after Crab Fair’s funfair.
He said: “My dad was born in Dumfries and the yard they stayed on was in Cleator Moor. They stayed their for 20 years and I think they had a yard on Whitehaven dock as well.
“So he’s been here all his life really and we live just between Windermere and Kendal, so he moved down there about 30 or 35 years ago.
“So far Crab Fair has been great and busier than a lot of the other fairs around here.
“I’ve been on the waltzers walking on it since about seven years old. But you just get used to it, it’s just practice.
“But you don’t know any different and as Taylors Funfairs we’re quite big now, so after Sunday we’re heading to the yard and then up to Nottingham and Hull with another ride for two week, they’re the two biggest fairs in the UK with hundreds of rides and loads of people go to that.
“It’s a huge achievement for my dad to come from Cleator Moor where he started and to be able to go to these fairs in this business. But overall I’m sure we have 120 or 130 years of history.”
Nathanial has also spent a large portion of his life travelling with rides where they are shipped across the world for him to work on, run and operate.
He said: “I’ve been to New Zealand, that was like Whitehaven’s Maritime festival in Auckland, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Morocco, the Caribbean islands Trinidad, Saint Lucia, Martinique, and Iceland many many times and my brother still goes there, he’s just got back.
“I’ve also been to Gibraltar, Dubai and Mauritius, obviously when you go abroad the foreign trips are always nice, but if the weather is good it’s always nice to go around Cumbria.”
Nathanial met his wife Alexandra through school and the pair have travelled together and now have a 10-and-a-half-month-old son.
He added: “I’m married now and I’ve got a baby and I’m not saying he will, but I imagine he will do this job too and when you think about it that way it’s nice.”
While roles were typically split by gender back in the day, Nathanial said he believes things are changing due to technology.
He said: “It’s definitely getting easier, all this stuff here is miles easier than it used to be, 20 or 30 years ago it would have been really physical stuff.
“It’s more modern, less lifting, easier and quicker and requires less staff.
“But my sister has four kids and three younger boys, but I feel like this job is getting so easy now, that it wouldn’t be a problem for a girl to get these rides about.
“I 100 per cent think it could change things in the future. Hundreds of years ago it used to be really physical and it wasn’t really what girls were brought up into, but now it’s pressing buttons and hydraulics so.
“All the girls can drive, all the girls can operate the rides no problem, so I don’t see why things wouldn’t change.”
Egremont’s Crab Fair has over 757 years of history. Do you have a story new or old to share? Email us at [email protected]
