BROMSGROVE fair used to traditionally be held on June 24 until late last century when it was moved to the nearest Saturday to that date. It was an important day in townsfolks' calendars.

A day when traditionally the first early potatoes were dug and if the weather was kind, the strawberry crop, upon which a large part of the rural economy depended, would come to fruition ready for the thousands of visitors who poured into the town , especially from Birmingham and the Black Country.

It was also a day when some farmers let their men leave early to attend the fair. This was provided they had the horses in the hayfield at 4am when the first streaks of Midsummer sunlight dispelled the dawn mist.

And certainly until the late 1950s some Bromsgrove schools declared June 24 a holiday.

The pleasure fair has been held, at different times, at Watt Close, Crown Close, St John Street, and for the last 100 years or so Recreation Ground.

Before the coming of steam power the swing boats were the most popular attraction but they slowly gave way to more "hairy" rides such as the "gondolas," galloping horses and cake walk.

The big influx of visitors naturally attracted the criminal fraternity.

Exhibits

These included pickpockets, some who travelled from London, cheap jacks, card sharpers, spivs and others whose activities bordered on the questionable and who kept the magistrates busy days after the fair had gone.

In 1894 tricksters selling goods accompanied by "gifts" of cash wrapped in scraps of paper were seen for the first time.

The gullible later found much less when they unwrapped the cash and were left to ponder how the switch had taken place in front of their own eyes. One conman was seen to take £8, a nailers' average monthly wage, in just 30 minutes.

"Yallermen", a Bromsgrove corruption of "yellow", were others who attracted big crowds in the streets near the fairground.

Mainly Blackcountrymen, they did brisk trade selling cheap yellow crockery.

And no fair was complete without its freak shows featuring animal and human exhibits, boxing booths shooting galleries, distorting mirrors, peep shows, coconut shies, women wrestlers and circuses.

In 1903 patrons could for a few pence marvel at the world's fattest woman, an African giant, giant children, the world's smallest father and mother and an unfortunate man minus his arms and legs.

Fast food was also fast catching on. Stalls selling brandysnaps and gingerbread were always popular as were sausages fried in a huge pan of boiling fat and sold between a sliced batch cake.

But it was the buying and selling of horses not only by auction but personal transaction that gave Bromsgrove fair its national reputation.

Animals were put through their paces, trotted along the length of High Street and often scattering the crowds who thronged the town centre.

But Holy Lane, now Church Street, was the sale's main focal point.

Small dark men speaking a language unintelligible to Bromsgrove folk, anxious to show potential buyers the ponies they had herded all the way from the Welsh mountains had spirit, used sharp sticks to gee them up to the delight of the hoards of small boys who hung about to watch such fun.

Elsewhere gypsies who had taken weeks to converge on Bromsgrove from a wide area of the Midlands haggled and argued over the sales of horses that pulled their curved roof vardos.

In Crown Close the horse sale proper took place with often as many as 800 assorted horses, nags, donkeys and asses coming under the hammer.

Nowadays, the horses are confined to those on kiddies' roundabouts and much of the noise, smells, excitement and thrills of the pleasure fair have gone for good.