When the fair comes

Text 1: The Michaelmas Fair, by Thomas Wardle

An original autobiography written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

Once a year, at Michaelmas, the fair came to our town, and for three days the sober market square was turned into a kingdom of noise and naphtha. The steam roundabout bellowed its organ music from noon till midnight, the showmen roared from their platforms, and every booth was lit by flaring lamps that made the faces of the crowd look red and wild, like a painting of the infernal regions.

I had saved fourpence since midsummer, and it was gone within the hour. A penny went on the swingboats, which carried me so high that I saw the church clock face to face and was sure I should be flung over the rooftops. A penny went on gingerbread, and two upon a man with three thimbles and a pea, who allowed me to win once and then never again. I believe I was cheated, and I believe I knew it at the time, and I did not care in the least.

On the fourth morning I went down early to look, and it was gone. The square was empty but for trampled straw and the marks of wheels, and the market women were setting out their cabbages as though nothing had happened at all.

Text 2: Funfair, by Ellie Marchant

An original contemporary blog.

For one week every August the funfair takes over the park, and the whole town goes slightly mad. You can hear the thump of the music from three streets away, and at night the rides light up in pink and green and electric blue until the sky above the trees looks radioactive. The smell of hot doughnuts and diesel is, to me, the smell of summer.

Last night I took twenty pounds and came home with nothing, which is traditional. Five pounds went on a ride called the Skyscraper, which swings you so high you can see the motorway and so fast that I screamed words I did not know I knew. Three went on candyfloss. The rest went on a stall where you throw darts at playing cards, run by a man who let me win a tiny plastic keyring on the first go and then nothing at all. It was obviously a con, and I had a brilliant time.

This morning I walked the dog past the park. The rides had already folded themselves up onto lorries, and all that was left was yellowed grass, a few lost tokens, and a man with a litter picker, as if it had all been a dream.

Both writers describe a visit to a travelling fair.

What are the similarities between the writers’ experiences of the fair?

Draw on evidence from both texts to support your answer.