Anorak alert



Every year in June a huge fair, the Hoppings, is held in Newcastle on the town moor (fascinating timeline here). It’s one of the biggest fairs in the country, along with Hull and Nottingham, and is a classic gathering of nearly every UK travelling showman. Three rows, each over a mile long, of attractions and rides, old and new. When I was a kid I used to get so excited about visiting the ‘town moor’ and the night before our visit was almost as unbearably long as Christmas Eve.
One of my favourite rides was the Moonrocket. This huge contraption featured fantastic ‘futuristic’ rocket cars on a tilted raised platform that revolved at a breathtaking speed causing the cars to tilt outwards and then swing back. The raised platform was always packed with older lads and their girlfriends listening to the pounding T Rex soundtrack and when the ride stopped there was always a mad scramble to find an empty car and jump in.



The Moonrocket stopped appearing at the town moor in the 1980’s as faster and more extravagant rides appeared so, for the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to track down what happened to it. It seems there were several Moonrockets in the UK from the 40’s to the 70’s but only one has survived today. The last surviving Moonrocket was lovingly restored a few years ago by an engineering company in Yorkshire and once a year it makes an appearance at a steam rally in Lincoln.



I called the engineering company this morning to confirm that they will be taking their pride and joy to this years rally and I’m pleased to report that they are. It’s years since I’ve been to Lincoln (last time was when I was the drummer in a band and we opened for Blancmange at a cheesy nightclub in 1983) so, there’s the first summer event to look forward to.