A Childhood Dream Come True! (Newspaper Article - see last post)

[Lancer]

I would like to tell you a story...it is rather long, and not MLP-related, but I think all you horse and pony lovers out there will enjoy it.  Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I shall begin.

Once upon a time, long, long ago in the year of 1996, a little girl visited the exotic town of Bognor Regis on the south coast of England.  For those who don't know, Bognor was once a thriving British seaside town full of fairgrounds and amusement arcades, cafes and fish and chip shops, candy floss, ice creams and donkey rides.  By 1996, it was but a shadow of its former self, but it did still have one attraction; the pier.
 
The pier was a small child's paradise, especially a small child such as the little girl in our story, who LOVED coin operated kiddie rides.  The pier was full of rare examples she had never seen before... a rocket, a heli-jet, a Dr Who Dalek, a white rabbit, a donkey and a small carousel horse amongst many others...

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Her favourites by far though were the two life-size horses.

There was Silver...

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And then there was Carousel...

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Gosh, they were beautiful.  The little girl had never seen anything like them before in her short life.

She didn't know back then that these rides all dated from Bognor's heyday of the 1950s and '60s.  No wonder the place felt magical.  They were the last remaining link to a happier era that she would never get to live through herself.

The following summer, the girl begged her parents to take her back to the pier so that she could see her old ride "friends" again.  But she was in for a nasty shock.  All of the rides were GONE.  Not one remained.  In their place stood one modern, garishly-painted van ride.  The little girl broke down in tears, not believing that all of the magic she had found there could be wiped out in a single winter.

And yet...something still felt special about this place.  Sad as she was to see the empty spaces where the rides had once stood, there was a "presence" there...almost as if the rides continued to watch over the pier like kindly guardian angels.

The girl and her parents visited the pier again the next summer, hoping that the rides may have returned.  And, in fact, a couple of them did.  In 1998, the Dalek and the Magic Roundabout returned!  (Although they were horribly repainted - the painter couldn't even spell "Darlek" apparently!)

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The girl wasn't sure whether this was a good or bad thing.  At least it proved that some of the rides had survived somewhere, she thought.  Then again, surely if any of the others had survived, they would be back working on the pier as well.

Each year, she and her parents returned...but soon even the Dalek and Magic Roundabout were gone.  The girl wrote songs for 'Carousel' and would sing them quietly to herself as she walked around the pier; "Where has my Carousel gone?" ("Where have the unicorns gone?" from G1 MLP!) and "Be Brave, Carousel" ("Someone's Waiting For You" from the Rescuers!) were familiar sounds to her poor tormented parents!  The girl was growing up and had got far too big to ride them anyway, but she just wanted to see those horses one more time, to gaze into Silver's big glass eyes and stroke Carousel's beautifully carved nose.  The dream was fading though.  Even if the rides had been stored in a warehouse somewhere, they had most likely been scrapped by now.

As she grew older, she tried everything to find out what had happened to them.  She wrote to Bognor Council, and to the pier itself.  She posted on Bognor forums appealing for people's memories of the rides.  She started a website about the history of coin operated rides in their memory: http://www.coinoperatedrides.weebly.com (the site is not online yet, but you can see the home page I drafted out last year)  But nobody ever came forward with any information or photographs.

Then, two amazing things happened.  The little girl (er, sorry, 21-year-old woman named Desirée...who I'm pretty sure you've guessed by now is your intrepid storyteller!) got in touch with a ride collector named Andy who had a Dalek in his collection.  It transpired that the ride had come from a storage shed on - you guessed it - Bognor Pier!  And only about three years previously, meaning that some of the rides HAD survived that long!  Andy invited the lady to come and see his collection, and she got to see her Dalek again.

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Soon, Andy would be adding another ride to his collection...  A friend of Desirée's pointed out something interesting on eBay.  It was a zebra ride.

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Now, while Desirée had never seen this zebra before, she recognised the paintwork on the base.  And the ride was located in Bognor Regis!  Having convinced Andy to "rescue" the zebra, she got in touch with the sellers and asked if she could go down and see the rides.

While she was there, Richard (the seller) told her that the zebra had indeed come from a storage shed at the end of Bognor Pier, and yes, there were MORE rides there!  Desirée started excitedly asking WHICH rides, and Richard offered to ring the pier owner and take her and her parents to the storage shed to see them!

The girl's heart fluttered as she walked into the shed filled with old amusement machines.  At first she saw no rides, but then Richard asked her, "Are you ready for this?" and pulled back a hidden door in the wall!

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Fifteen years later, Desirée burst into tears again...but this time they were tears of joy.  The smaller rides were all gone, but there, in a dark, damp shed (just a few feet from the arcade where she had always felt so "near" to the rides!) stood the rocket and Heli-Jet she remembered from all those years earlier.  Apparently, the pier had changed ownership in 1996, and the new owner had deemed the rides too "old fashioned" so had thrown them in here!  So what were the other rides in the room?  There was another Heli-Jet, and what appeared to be a whole stable full of horses!  Desirée searched the faces of the horses...and, sure enough, there they were.

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Oh my gosh, what a state they were in.  Carousel's leg was broken and balanced on her back, but it was hard to see their condition with them all crammed in the shed like that.  Richard promised to let me know once the rides were out of the shed so that I could get a better look at them.

But he never did.  Three months later, the rides popped up on eBay and (thankfully) I had enough people watching the account that we saw the auctions appear.  There was very suspicious behaviour surrounding Carousel's auction, with what looked like pretty obvious shill bidding.  The prices were far too high, but I couldn't let them go.  Ten days later, they were mine!  And we went to collect them the following weekend.

Oh, but even then it wasn't the happy ending we had planned.  Well, maybe it was for Silver.  The handsome boy was wheeled out of the shed and saw daylight for the first time in over a decade and a half!  He posed for one final picture in front of his natural seaside habitat before boarding the lorry to London.

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With the other rides out of the way, I finally got a look at my beautiful Carousel.  Oh, poor, poor Carousel.  She was made of wood, and had been sitting in water for many years.  You can imagine what happened when they tried to lift her.  That lovely old 1950s base just crumbled, decaying wood scattering everwhere.

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With nothing to support her, the horse tumbled forward, but my mum and I managed to catch her before the whole base collapsed and she fell to her doom.  With great care, she was hoisted onto the lorry.

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Somehow, we got her all the way back to London in one piece (well, more or less).  Of course, there was no way we could bring all that decay and rust into the house, so we had to hastily hire a room at the local storage depot.  That is where the horses must stay until I can find somebody to restore them.  Yes, even more expense.  It's well worth it though.  I have visited them each day over the holidays and every time I open the door to the room, it's like a little bit of that long lost magic returns.

Sixteen years later, the childhood dream has come true.  One little girl and her two horse "friends", reunited at last.

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[nudging your story over to Off Topic for you - kiwimlp ]

[Cinnabar]

What an absolutely beautiful story!!! Thanks for sharing it, brought a smile to my face!

[kellyponyfeathers]

I'm . . . not really sure what to say.  I'm crying. . . .  Very happy for you, and how wonderful that your friends and family helped you rescue them.

I think others would be interested in hearing this story, maybe some carousel enthusiasts.  It's not quite the same thing, but it's close.  Maybe they could give you some help/advice with restoring them to their old glory.

Congrats on recovering such a big piece of your childhood.  Can't use an exclamation point here; the story's too deep and touching.

[achab1984]

Those are so awesome!!!! I am happy they are safe and sound with you now!

[cyberunicorn]

Amazing they are so gorgeous even in there current state. I wonder how many other people as kids remember them. its nice you rescued them...this might sound daft do they still run?

[4Lindy]

What an awesome story!  Big Congrats!!!!

[brightberry]

They're beautiful!   I'm so happy you found and saved them!

[kittybethy]

What a wonderful story!! So pretty!

[little.fox]

I loved your story, I'm so happy that you have found these lovely pieces again! Huge congrats and best of luck with the restaurations.

[Lancer]

Thanks, guys!  I know everyone on my Facebook must be sick of hearing about these horses by now, so I figured I'd take some of my enthusiasm elsewhere.

Kellyponyfeathers - Sadly, all the fairground enthusiasts I speak to in this country are a bit 'snobby' about kiddie rides.  Carousels and fairground rides are better and all that jazz.  Likewise, slot machine enthusiasts only like pinball etc. as they can't actually USE and play with kiddie rides!

It's rather ironic as these rides were made by Edwin Hall who actually started out as a pretty famous fairground painter and designer.  Edwin passed away over 30 years ago, but I am currently in touch with his niece.  She's been telling me how it was a real family business with her mother making all the saddles for the rides and her father testing them etc.  If anybody's interested, Google "Edwin Hall fairground toys" and you'll find an old pathé news clip (complete with hilariously posh British voiceover!) of the workshop where they were made.

I find it sad that there's not more interest in these machines...I've always loved them right through from when I was small enough to actually ride.  These days I'm obviously more interested in their history - who made them and when etc. and, on a more personal level, how individual rides moved between owners/different arcades.  I'd LOVE to find a photograph of my two horses in their working days, for instance.

Cyberunicorn -  Just the other day, I was thinking just how many thousands of rides they must have given in their time.  Somebody else out there must remember them.  And yet nobody has ever answered my many questions about them across the internet.

And no, they don't run anymore!  Carousel lost a lot of her base on the way back to London - what's left of the mechanism is rusted and smashed.  Silver looks pretty intact (but rusty), but there are a lot of exposed wires so I wouldn't dare to replace the plug and try him out.  The mechanisms are quite straight forward and easily replaced though - I'm more worried about the cracks to the bodies and getting them repainted to look original, to be honest.

Thankfully, I still know of three potential kiddie ride restorers in this country and I will be meeting them all at a big amusement trade fair at the end of the month.  Hopefully one of them will be able to help.

[Honeycomb]

What a wonderful story!!! It's so amazing that they came back to you! Mega huge congrats!

[Arianna]

Once upon a time, long, long ago in the year of 1996, a little girl visited the exotic town of Bognor Regis on the south coast of England.  For those who don't know, Bognor was once a thriving British seaside town full of fairgrounds and amusement arcades, cafes and fish and chip shops, candy floss, ice creams and donkey rides.  By 1996, it was but a shadow of its former self, but it did still have one attraction; the pier.
 
The pier was a small child's paradise, especially a small child such as the little girl in our story, who LOVED coin operated kiddie rides.  The pier was full of rare examples she had never seen before... a rocket, a heli-jet, a Dr Who Dalek, a white rabbit, a donkey and a small carousel horse amongst many others...

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...

Congratulations on the find and sale!

I'm sorry, but the caption for your first picture should be, "You guys actually rode this thing?"

She doesn't seem very happy.

[Lancer]

Congratulations on the find and sale!

I'm sorry, but the caption for your first picture should be, "You guys actually rode this thing?"

She doesn't seem very happy.

Yes, I think I was a bit nervous when I first rode that spaceship...and I was terrified of the Dalek as you can see from that first photo of it!  You can see me looking at the spaceship in Carousel's picture too...I thought it was going to fly away, with me inside it!

What can I say?  I was only five at the time!

[Arianna]

Congratulations on the find and sale!

I'm sorry, but the caption for your first picture should be, "You guys actually rode this thing?"

She doesn't seem very happy.

...and I was terrified of the Dalek as you can see from that first photo of it!

What can I say?  I was only five at the time!

Oh!  That's you! lol I'm sorry, I skimmed the text and was looking at the pictures.

And, yes, Daleks scare the heck out of me too!

Robots in general, while very interesting, scare me to no end!

When I was four or five years old, there was a robot demonstration at the local mall.  The men behind the machine thought it funny to have it follow me around.  Of course I freaked.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

That's... wow... I'm crying and can't stop.  That's just so...  amazing and heartwrenching and it has a HAPPY ENDING! 

So much congratulations!  That looks like it's been an incredible journey your family has taken to help you preserve these special pieces of history.  I do hope you are able to restore them!