Hearsall Common Fair

You were lucky to be able to keep your fish Philip. We had one or two from the crock fair. We could not understand as kids why we got up one morning and they were floating on the top of the tank. We found out later that our dad who used to get up very early in the morning to go on his wholesale bread round that he was sharing his cornflakes with the goldfish !

Hi Annewiggy It was all a learning curve with Archibald & Horace. What did help us in those early days, was housing the goldfish in a huge glass tank. My dad got hold of a battery glass tank. Maybe one of our heritage motor enthusiasts can help, but in early motors, so as to stop battery acid leakage, the batteries in posh motors were placed in these glass tanks. It was a one-piece moulded glass tank, so no joins to leak. We had only had it a short time when a pump driven bubbler was added, which meant that the water would stay fresh for ages. Happy times. Forgot to mention that a comical sight was when the budgie used to bathe in it & nearly drown. That is when we had to add a top to it.

Our son's family has a goldfish which they must have had surprisingly 8 or 9 years which I think my daughter in law would gladly see the back of. They started with 2 splish and splash, one of them died and they don't know which one so now they are referred to as Splish or splash. I did not realise they lived that long after our experience.

1984 Crock Fair

1974 Crock Fair

Noticable how in the 1974 photo the crowd look singularly underwhelmed with the goods, vendor's spiel or both.

Happy days.