Rougham 1981

Rougham fayre are good times, went to most of the rougham fayres with some friends from the talbot in gt yarmouth, my first fayre was barsham in 76 think it was a wet , went to greenpeace fayre at henham in 2011 had a good time don't think thay are going to have it this year . going to harlequin fayre this summer 2012 should be good , but dont think you can get better then the Albion Fayres of the 70s. archie

I've just stumbled across your webpage ( I was actually searching for information on travelling cinemas) and have been thrown back twenty five years.  I grew up in Suffolk and attended many of these fairs between 1978 and 1981 when I left to go to London for Drama School. Rougham Tree Fair was my nearest fair.

It all seems such a long time ago.  I was about fifteen, precocious, had my first girlfriend, was experimenting with drugs and desperately wanted to be an actor. I loved the theatre companies that visited the fairs, like Incubus and the Sadista Sisters, and spent a lot of time badgering Paddy Fletcher of Incubus and his actors for information. The fairs were remarkable and importantly pre "grunge" which I really do loathe. The organisors were genuinely and not just fashionably alternative in their outlook and had that bizarre mix of hippy/punk which felt to a fifteen year old to be genuinely radical and anarchic. Stall holders and exhibitors displayed real skills - Suffolk was always such a good place for crafts people to live and work - and it was great to see  potters, illustrators, carpenters, weavers, herbalists and all kinds of English revivalist craftsfolk displaying their wares.  What has happened to all of these people?  The Albion Fairs and Green Deserts crew? I'd forgotten all about Coypu Comix and the coypu themselves, which along with escaped otters [from the Otter Trust] could be seen along the river Thet. Marcus