We love to see famous people visiting our fairs, and in the news stories on these pages you will find photos of lots of them including models, the odd Prime Minister (sorry, we do not mean the Prime Minister is odd but we hope you understand), pop stars, X Factor contestants (as opposed to pop […]
We love to hear from schools who are undertaking projects related to funfairs as they are such an important part of leisure and have been for hundreds of years. We know that a lot of young people are doing projects for GCSE as many of them email us and ask for information which we […]
We cannot tell you much about this photo at this time other than to hint that we were thrilled to be part of the filming of an episode of a famous Detective series to come up later this year. Lots of drama and great acting, plus the odd corpse here and there, and some of […]
From time to time I wonder if anyone ever reads our website, and then we hear from people who have indeed done so and found something out that excites them! One such occasion was when we heard from Australia about Mary Ann Wright who is shown on the Irvin Family history stories on this […]
I wonder how many people reading this post (if any such people really exist) are aware of how hard their local Mayors work each year on behalf of their borough. A really tough job, and a very important one at that because whilst they may not always wield the top political power in the Council […]
Whilst we were recently at our Spring Fair on Turnham Green we were struck by the beautiful new herbal garden that was next to us. We found out that this had been put in by the Friends of Turnham Green themselves and they kindly sent over this photo. They tell us they are going […]
Wanted to share with you some correspondence between Steve Smith who is Editor of the Fairground Society and our friend Malcolm Gill: Hi Steve I delved into your details of James Irvin and his four sons James, George, Henry and William. Here’s what I have. James Abraham Irvin married Elizabeth Young 27 Sep 1842 […]
Another branch of the family that now lead towards George Irvin is the Stewart family whose life in fairgrounds dates back to the 1930s. In fact the Stewarts were boxers with a tradition of professional boxing and running boxing booths in fairs dating back to the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Perhaps the most […]
Strolling through the heart of London, as you do, we were surprised, and delighted, to see the above painting of George Irvin’s Traditional Helter Skelter standing in Hyde Park for the Royal Wedding last year. The painting was in pride of place in the window of Messum’s Gallery in Cork Street, London, W15. The painting […]
We have just come across some press cuttings related to the Irvin family history and links to the past and wanted to share them with our loyal reader. First of all, the next George Irvin is a direct descendant of Frank Wilson, described in the press upon his sad death (fortunately not from a hungry […]
