[The Evans and Owen Christmas scene]
Here’s an email from a follower of bathnewseum.com who lives in Ipswich, but the content is very much to do with Bath!
He writes: “Wondering if you can help? My name is John Loades, and we have a model funfair made by my father, Fred Loades.
For some of its life, it has been in a mobile unit. I am currently writing a history of our family and listing various things we have done.
Now I remember, but not clearly, bringing it to Bristol for a programme called Wyatt’s Place. I have just found a payment we received of £70 from HTV Bristol in May 1979. That’s all the info I have, but I wondered if you could add anything?
We were all a lot younger then!
Also, my father used to put Xmas grottoes in the basement at Evans and Owen in the 50 s, and I used to come to Bath to help him. Mr Glenn Bond was the boss, and it was a very ‘Are You Being Served ” store.”
I replied to John, confirming the fact that yes, l did front a children’s programme called Wyatt’s Place, but l could not remember the model funfair. It was a long time ago!
I wanted to know more about his father’s connections with Bath.
By the way, if you click on https://www.facebook.com/miniaturefunfair/ you can view that attraction! It looks amazing!! His father had started building it back when he was just a boy.
But, back to Bath. John told me his father had worked on radar research during the last war at Great Malvern College, where he was born.
“The model fair had been in storage, but at the end of the war, Fred (his father) carried on with it. He then showed it in a department store in Malvern in a shop called Kendalls.
He then built an animated snow scene and a Nursery Rhyme display, and at this point in the late 40’s is when I believe he first came to Bath, which was obviously not far away.
We moved to where we live now in 1951, and Fred added more displays.
I remember coming with my dad to Bath. He used to have a railway container to send the display, and we would follow to come and assemble it, travelling by STEAM train, and arriving at that curved platform with the station announcer calling out ‘BATH SPA, BATH SPA, BATH SPA!
Anyway, we would arrive at Evans and Owen in the afternoon, and father would work through most of the night to get the grotto ready with a little help from me. This was down in the basement.
There used to be Hessian pads filled with straw, which protected the goods in transit, and these were left there ready for the return journey. I used a couple of these as a mattress! In the morning, we were allowed to go up to the restaurant and have some breakfast before the staff arrived.
As a special bonus, I was allowed to select a firework to bring home (about 7 shillings and 6 pence!)
We carried on for a few years, and I don’t know when that actually stopped, but I think probably about 1959/60.”
In a further email, John sent me the pictures l have used here.
He said: “Attached are pictures of displays which I am pretty sure will have been to Bath. The bridge scene, in particular, I do remember it being there, as it was when I was on the night shift! It had vehicles going over it, and there was a waterfall behind with coloured lights. There were other bits that went with it, but not sure what. The Nursery Rhymes and the Winterwonderland definitely came from the Malvern days, so I am sure they were probably the first things which came to E & O. “
Thanks for your contribution, John. I wonder who in our area remembers the display?
