Written with thanks to Michael Dorling, 2022. 

​

The fair was requested as an added attraction over Carnival Day around 1984. The carnival had increased in size, evolving from an annual fete and small procession, I believe run by the scouts and guides (correct me if I am wrong on this) and then taken over by a subsequent committee dedicated to the organising of the annual event.

I joined in the early 1980’s and along with Kevin King headed a committee of approx. 18 people and continued to help organise the carnival for the next 20 odd years. One of the suggestions I put to the committee was to try and organise a fair to come along annually.

The first course of action was to ask the Parish Council for permission to come onto the green at the end of every June as part of the Carnival. This was agreed. Contact was made by an agent for a fair – he was very keen and agreed to give a donation each year to Carnival funds and also agreed to a number of rules that were put into place, in the interests of the village. They were to open on Friday and Saturday evenings from 5pm until 10pm and would be allowed to set up on the Thursday and leave on the Monday. In reality various rides and caravans arrived at various times and set up disregarding any verbal arrangements that were made. The agent was unavailable for all of this time, so not very successful!

A few weeks following, I had a visit from two gentlemen who had heard that we were not happy with the current fair and after discussions, they agreed to supply their own fair, starting the following year. The two gentlemen were brothers Robert and Chris Summers who were based in Felixstowe I believe. At the following Carnival meeting the committee agreed to the change and
the Summers fair were duly booked for the following year, 1986.

Word had got back to the previous agent, who stated that Great Bentley Green was ‘his’ pitch and no other fair could be allowed on the green. I told him that as a committee we were not happy with the general behaviour of his fair and that we were unable to contact him and had therefore changed. A few weeks later I received a visit from Robert Summers stating that he was to be taken
to a tribunal of the Showman’s Guild for setting up his fair on a pitch that was supposedly ‘owned’ by another fair. I was asked to go before the tribunal to state the reasons of the change and sometime later I received a request to put the reasons in writing which I did, explaining that no person or authority could sanction the use of, or encroachment, of the village green without the 
authority of the Parish Council (owners) and that no fair had any given rights to appear on the green. This also applies to the fair in September that comes and has been doing so for many years – this fair also appears with Parish Council agreement.

Needless to say, the Summers fair set up in 1986 and has continued to do so to this day. Always following the rules and contributing to Carnival funds in many ways. For instance, in the early days cricket and dart matches were organised at The Plough between teams made up from the village and fair people. A cup was given annually to the winners and a good time had by all.

I met every year on the green with Robert, his wife Beverley and his then children, Robert Jnr, and Candy on the Sunday before Carnival Day to mark out the sites for various rides and then see them off on the Monday following carnival, which I still try to do.

The fair is now run by Robert Jnr. who keeps his fathers’ standards. This year (2022) will be their 36th time on the green.
Ask any of the Summers family how they feel, coming onto the green the Monday before the Carnival, and they will all say …. It’s like coming home.

Michael Dorling

Ps…..Might be interesting to hear when the fete / carnival / procession started. Was their a strawberry queen pre carnival queen?

Pps…Hopefully enough people will have responded to the appeal put out by the current committee to join and help organise the day. Without people being on the committee and giving up some time on carnival day, there will be no carnival.

A few notes on fairs on the village green in earlier years.

These visits to Great Bentley were called fairs but were for the sale of cattle and sheep, alongside which were stalls selling all kinds of goods, usually accompanied by swings, roundabouts etc.
These events were carried out under a charter granted 450 years ago for cattle to be sold on the Monday following Trinity Monday; the last Friday in September for sheep and the Monday after St. Swithins at which household goods and cloths etc were sold. Maybe that September fair from long ago has continued until recently, with our traditional Bentley fair at this time.
Interestingly in 1871, representation was made to Tendring Magistrates that the annual fair after St. Swithins, usually lasting two or three days, should be, in the interests and advantage of the public, abolished. This representation was sent to the principal Secretary of State. Reply received 16th April 1872 – It appears to be that it would be an advantage to the public that the said fair
should be abolished. Now therefore, I as Secretary of State for the Home Dept., do hereby order the fair should be abolished. There is a line of thought today that fairs have a long permission or a charter to set up on the village green, but this is not correct. The only body to give permission of use for the green is the Parish Council.