Porthcawl Mexicans

The bandits still standing (just)

Porthcawl fair (or Coney Beach Pleasure Park to give it its proper name as it was named after the New York fair on Coney Island) has been around since 1920, offering thrills and cherished memories to countless thousands who would visit the fair every year. Sadly nowadays numbers are in the decline but during the summers of the 1980s Porthcawl was THE place to be.
Schoolchildren and grandmothers alike would look forward to the trip and the delights it held, from donkey rides on the beach to the famous Water Chute ride which was situated at front of the funfair and greeted visitors with the shuddering noise of carts on its wooden frame and great sprays of water that would spill over the plastic glass shelter.
I, and many many others, loved the place. For a child you couldn't not love Porthcawl because it was the place that could make your childish fantasies come alive before your eyes. Wooden roller coasters, ghost trains, the Devil's Dipper (a mix of coaster and ghost train), the Enterprise (think giant bicycle wheel with you on the spokes in a metal seat), amusement arcades, waltzers, dodgems, it never ended. And then there was the food! Like all funfairs, it had a bit of everything from candy hearts to hot dogs but it was the fresh doughnuts and faggots and peas that the fair was famous for.
So many memories nestle in the good parts of my mind; like wanting to be the first to see the Water Chute as the car got closer, and creeping slowly through the Chamber of Horrors where scenes of medieval torture would be lit up in the dark complete with blood curdling noises. Then there was the Funhouse which had an assortment of cool things from crazy mirrors to the steepest and highest slide I have ever seen. There was lots of grazed and bruised flesh after a visit in there.
One of the rides which stands out in my recollections is the 'cowboy ride' which is situated (its still there all these decades on) almost at the back of the fair. Its a childrens ride where a steam train goes around a Wild West themed track complete with saloon bars, cactus and the Mexican bandits you can see in the above photo. (A picture I took on a 2008 visit).
As you can imagine, being a childrens ride its not very exciting and the highlight was going over and under the small bridge in the middle of the track (I had a strange fascination with staring at the ferns which grew under this bridge) but whenever I think of Porthcawl my mind invaiable gets drawn back to this charming little attraction. And there I am once again, 7 years old, holding a quivering candyfloss in one hand and ringing the rusty bell on the trains bare carriage with the other.
And whenever we chugged past those Mexican bandits, my brother and I would try to reach out to try and touch one of them, believing if we did that some sort of magical dust would rub off on us. (Or at least I believed this).
Today if I tried touching those fading bandits, I might expect to be instantly sent back to my childhood, my beard gone along with my tattoos, and the sands golden again with the worlds weight lifted from my heavy shoulders. Those wooden cut outs are a link to my youth, long before the modern engines arrived and burned away the ghosts.