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Onion Fair

Eric my next door but three neighbour May used to organise that and we used to get the biggest rolls you've ever seen. She was also a cook at the IMI for some years. Jean.
 
I remember the Onion fair. Didn't they used to have toy fur monkeys for sale on a piece of elastic. I am sure that fur could have been cat or rabbit.
 
Those who remember the onion fair would probably remember Hickmans Boxing Booth.
Saw Randolph and Jackie Turpin there once.
And the ecaped lion story,perfectly true,my dad told me of it recently,he was there along with half the boy's from Aston,he said they cornered it in the churchyard,but it must have been a friendly lion,no one was bitten.
 
My mother used to tell the story of the escaped lion. It was apparently cornered in the porch of Aston Church, an old and weak animal more scared than the people pursuing it. Or so she said.

My best memory of the Onion Fair is the Winchester .22 shooting-gallery, where I'd spend half the night and every penny I had. It was five shots for a shilling, if I remember.

Big Gee
 
Big Gee we became very good friends of the owners and Astonian found their photo out if you scroll back. We visited them at Nuneaton until they both died [Humphries sisters] about ten or eleven years ago. Bye. Jean.
 
That's the way I heard the story Big Gee,and a contact of mine said her dad remembered it the same way.
 
Big Gee look at #33. It is a photograph of Mrs Humphries then #54 a photograph of her daughters caravan [wagon] and the sisters little dog Lena and last #55 the photo Astonian kindly found for me of Ruth to the left and Clara her sister. The caravan is the one Mrs Humphries lived in many years ago. Jean.
 
Yes Jean, the shop was next to the post office. Do you remember it then ?
 
From one Brummie wench to another. Apologies GG Jean - not got the hang of this website yet! Yes the shop was next to the post office. We moved in 1952 to live at Walsall Road, Perry Barr and mum and dad travelled to the shop daily. In all this brum history, it amazes me there is no mention of the good old GEC at the bottom of Aston Hall Lane in Electric Avenue. So many brummies worked there including my dad.
I was born in 43 so nostalgia is taking a hold now ! I hardly have any relatives left !
 
Walsallie there are pages of memories of the GEC on the site - just type in GEC in the search engine and you should find them.
 
walsallie, the GEC was my first Job when I left school in June 1944, in the drawing office, happy days. Eric:grinsmile:
 
does anyone remember the boxing booths if you fancied your chance to win a few bob
you could box the other bloke in the ring if you won you get the money.That great boxer Randolph Turpin and one of his brothers used to box at the Onion fair.
great days then.
 
Stay on your feet for 3 rounds and win a fiver,they were supposed to be 3 minute rounds,but some seemed to go on for ever,the M.C.would call for a whip round for anyone who went the distance,and make it up to £5.
Further to the Turpins,I went to the unveiling of the bronze statue of Randolph which is in the market place in Warwick,Sir Henry Cooper and Jackie Turpin did the unveiling.
 
The Onion Fair tamed. Len. The Fair But Not the Onions" (by C. H. Lea )

For several years the Onion Fair languished. It became the happy hunting ground of toughs and gangs who exacted tribute from showmen in return for not molesting them, and it seemed likely that the Fair would die the natural death prophesied for it in 1875. But Pat Collins was getting busy. In due time he leased the Old Pleck ground, and he has told the writer that friends thought he was mad! There was method in his madness however. He refused to deal with the Black Bands, the Stool Boys, or the Peaky Blinders, and when the Fair opened the roughs had some severe shocks. Police were in attendance, and the roughs were repelled. Pat Collins has told the writer: "At night along came two members of the gang. One greeted me familiarly and twitched my hat over my eyes. My fist shot out, and down went the man. His friend received a punch which made him sag at the knees." The defeat of the gangs was so spectacular that they never again gave any trouble, and the Fair began to regain its lost respectability. (Birmingham Gazette: 26 November 1935)
 
Len living in Holte road next door to the Serpentine ground I couldn't wait for the onion fair to come. I remember the onions being hung up over the entrance and as I have said before my family were very good friends of many of the fair people especially the Humphreys who owned the shooting range. Jean.
 
G G Jean said:
Len living in Holte road next door to the Serpentine ground I couldn't wait for the onion fair to come. I remember the onions being hung up over the entrance and as I have said before my family were very good friends of many of the fair people especially the Humphreys who owned the shooting range. Jean.
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Hi Jean,

You may be interested in this question I noticed on the Villa News and Views…What happened to the Serpentine land

https://astonvilla-views.com/2010/03/09/what-happened-to-the-serpentine-deal/?

All the best Peter
 
The Onion or Michaelmas Fair originated in the C18th as a 6-day & night celebration of the first crop and occupied most of the streets around Dale End, High St, Smithfield and Digbeth (apparently piled as high as houses in the Bull Ring). Until 1851 the opening was announced by the Town Crier and preceded by a procession of the High & Low Bailiffs and musical Band

But it was the side-shows that were the main attraction for many inc wax-works, swing boats and booths of unfortunates (basically anyone Victorians felt were outside the average - fat, bearded, short, ugly - Daniel Lambert "The world's fattest man", Nanetta Stocker "The world's tiniest woman" (buried in St Philip's)). Without a zoo, Bostock's and Wombwell's circus/menageries provided Brummies with something more exotic than pigeons and bulls.

Increasing levels of drunkenness (tsk!) and trade disruption complaints led to confinement to the Bull Ring in 1861 and abolishment in 1875 when the Fairgrounds moved out of the Council's jurisdiction to the Old Pleck Aston under Pat Collins - until the Aston Expressway of course.

The Horse Fairs continued in the road named after them at Whit and Michaelmas. [adapted from Chris Upton's A History of Birmingham]
 
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:)there was an artical in the Sunday Mercury this week about the smallest woman on the onion fair
her name was Anita. i remember her very well. my father inlaw had a photograph taken with him sitting on Anita's lap . i also remember the bearded lady who was there.i used to like going on the ghost train
the catterpiller . had some great at the fair.
 
Given what I said in post #91 above this reproduction of "Birmingham Onion Fair" from The Illustrated London News of 1872 paints a very rosy and probably wishful view but is very nostalgic I think. Perhaps all the sideshows of unfortunates were in the marquees at the back of the picture?
 
Thanks Jean - it shows that the exhibition of unfortunates continued when the Fairground moved out of the Bull Ring area and the Council's jurisdiction in 1875 to the Old Pleck Aston under Pat Collins - until the Aston Expressway of course.

Why couldn't I have met someone like Melita?
 
williams said:
I never made it to the onion fair,although i did know of it. I did get taken to the Stratford upon Avon Mop fair, no idea why it was so named but it was great fun. ???
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Mop fairs were so called because domestic servants were hired for the year there. There was a St Johns (Worcester) Mop and a Lichfield Mop, amonst others. The housemaids would carry mops to show what sort of job they did.
 
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