Stuart Forester - Mitcham Fair Green

http://www.stuartforester.com Mitcham Fair Green by Stuart Forester. An original song in DADGAD tuning telling the tale of a passionate rendezvous between a young fairground worker and an older woman at Mitcham Fair, South London. Mitcham's Fair is one of England's oldest. Apart from two lapses of a few years each, it has been a feature of local life for so long that nobody is quite sure how it all began. What is sure is that the Fair was definitely around by the mid-eighteenth century. In fact, it seems to have attracted a great deal of unwelcome attention at this time, for tradition states that the authorities declared the Fair illegal between 1770 and 1775. Originally, the Fair was held on Upper (or "Fair") Green, but it had an unwelcome habit of overflowing onto nearby private land, prompting complaints from the owners. During the 1900s, these complaints, together with the threat of accidents posed by the ever-increasing traffic congestion, led to suggestions that the Fair should be abolished. But traditionalists cried out (rightly or wrongly) that "the people's Fair" had been granted by Royal Charter and could not be taken away. After many years of arguments, the Fair was allowed to survive but only if it moved to a new venue. So in 1924 it moved to its modern location around Three Kings Piece. It continued to be held year after year until 1940 when the Second World War intervened, but this was only a brief interruption and eight years later it made a triumphant return.
Its greatest threat to date came in 1975, when some local residents who considered the event a nuisance complained loudly to the Council. The Council responded by imposing more stringent regulations on the showmen, demanding an improvement in safety checks and food hygiene. This led to an increase in pitch rents and the showmen, already unhappy at the poor profits rainy Augusts had bought them in recent years, decided to call it a day. But, as had happened over fifty years previously, there was a public outcry - the issue of the alleged Royal Charter was again raised and there were loud demands to bring the Fair back.
Happily, a compromise was eventually reached and Mitcham Fair reopened in 1983 on its traditional date of 12 August - a date once well-known to locals as "the Glorious Twelfth".

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Mitcham
• Fair
• Green
• acoustic
• guitar
• folk
• DADGAD
• open
• tuning
• gibson
• CL20
• Surrey
• beer
• whiskey
• angel
• moon
• halo
• jacket
• collar
• beauty
• beacon
• brass
• bold
• carousel
• wirlwind
• passion
• flame
• lessons
• shadow
• penny
• arcade
• love
• grateful
• night
• roll
• tumble
• leaves
• grass
• hair
• joy
• rapture
• glow
• lights
• big
• wheel
• head
• spinning
• heaven
• trees
• shine
• comet
• free
• morning
• woke
• embers
• haze
• dew
• dawn
• ring
• token
• bird
• king
• nothing

[ForesterFolk]

@spaceguitars thanks a lot. Yeah the CL20 is great, if you can find one you could probably pick one up for less than £1000. I also have a Gibson Songwriter which is better (check out some of my other videos). Lakewoods are great guitars too. You can't go wrong with a D-18 either.

[spaceguitars]

I love this tune. Solid guitar work and good singing. Everything comes naturally and ain't overdone in any way. Great job, Stuart! I'm in the market for an acoustic guitar. Currently I have a Martin D-18 in focus, however your Gibson CL-20 sounds sweet in this video. Any recommendations? I'd greatly appreciate your opinion and feedback on this. Hearing people like makes me wanna play more acoustic. Thanks for the inspiration

[ForesterFolk]

@JohnMRavenscroft Thanks John, glad you liked it.

[JohnMRavenscroft]

Very, very nice!