{"id":14981,"date":"2015-10-06T23:31:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T22:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=14981"},"modified":"2015-10-06T23:31:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T22:31:31","slug":"abingdon-michaelmas-fair-now-and-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=14981","title":{"rendered":"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair &#8211; now and then"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag15\/15100602.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair\" \/><br \/>\nJessica couldn&#8217;t get to the fair this year and so she asked me to take a picture of her favourite ride. She remembers it best as Jump &#8216;n&#8217; Smile. More recently it has been known as Froggit. This year it had been reincarnated as Super Bounce.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag15\/15100604.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair\" \/><br \/>\nI sometimes try to imagine what Abingdon Fair was like in the past with the help of old newspapers &#8230; In 1830, instead of Superbowl, you might have seen &#8220;<em>an exhibition of wild animals and fat ladies, and elephant and dwarfs, monkeys with hands and a child without any.<\/em>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag15\/15100605.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair\" \/><br \/>\nInstead of The Waltzers <em>&#8220;for &nbsp;the price of one penny, you could have seen the lying in state and funeral procession of George IVth, and the glorious battle of Paris during the very last revolution.<\/em>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag15\/15100621.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair\" \/><br \/>\nIn 1840 <em>&#8220;Our Police Force needed to be vigilant in detecting the hordes of pick-pockets who could be seen in every direction pursuing their vocation.<\/em>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag15\/15100617.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair\" \/><br \/>\nBy 1882 rides had started to replace the shows, and exhibitions, so instead of Captain Hook &nbsp;you could have experienced &#8220;<em>Bailey&#8217;s Steam Yachts with the simulated motion of the sea. Three electric lamps stationed outside gave a brilliant light, but they were not seen to best advantage amid the smoke and the blaze of paraffin lamps.<\/em>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag15\/15100622.jpg\" alt=\"Abingdon Michaelmas Fair\" \/><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;Birds was the only steam roundabout at the fair , but there was a rickety one in the Sheep Market at which a pony provided the power.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica couldn&#8217;t get to the fair this year and so she asked me to take a picture of her favourite ride. She remembers it best as Jump &#8216;n&#8217; Smile. More recently it has been known as Froggit. This year it had been reincarnated as Super Bounce. I sometimes try to imagine what Abingdon Fair was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}