Sepia Saturday 131 : 23 June 2012

Today’s prompt features people enjoying themselves on the swing ride at the Hoppings Fair in Newcastle in the 1940s. The Hoppings is a popular fair in the North East of England, held in the last full week of June every year on Newcastle’s Town Moor, spanning around 40 acres of land. The Hoppings started out as a Temperance Festival in 1882, when Newcastle Temperance organisations decided to revive  the annual gatherings that they had previously held, but included different festivities to coincide with, and counter-attract the ‘Summer Race Meeting’ at Gosforth Park, which was seen as a source of drunkenness. It proved to be a great success and the fair is still enjoyed to this day. The image comes from Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums Photostream in Flickr Commons, where you can find many more wonderful photographs from the fair. I had a hard job choosing one for the prompt, but do go and have a look at the others if you have a moment. Those of us who like to theme our posts can take our pick from fairgrounds and pleasure park rides or other amusements, or you could even pick up the temperance connection. Has life been a ‘Roller Coaster Ride? Do you live in a ‘House of Fun’? or perhaps you have an ‘Aunt Sally’ immortalised in sepia. So come on don’t be ‘shy’, join us at the Sepia Saturday Fair this week by posting your contribution on or around Saturday 30th June and try to visit as many other fairgoers as you can to see what they’ve made of the prompt. Please leave a comment after linking to Mr Linky below. “Roll up, Roll up!”

Here’s a mini-banner for you to add to your post and links your readers back to Sepia Saturday. Enjoy your ride everybody!
Marilyn

For those who like to have advance warning of the next two prompts they are reproduced below.