MORNING SERIAL

THERE was a waltzer too, but by far the best and biggest attraction were the dodgems. Truth be told, all seemed a little forlorn in broad daylight with faded paint and metal struts all chipped and scratched. But as evening fell and darkness settled around the stalls and rides, cloaking all imperfections, everything was transformed.

All became intriguing, as the generators burped and rumbled into life and the hundreds of multi-coloured low-wattage light bulbs festooned about the site gently fizzed into life.

Then the music started up, and buzzing loudspeakers began to belt out numbers by Slade and T Rex and the Bay City Rollers at full volume, rattling windows in the houses round about and setting the elderly to openly tutting and quietly blaspheming. And soon, moth-like, all the children and teenagers of Aberfan and Merthyr Vale and from the other villages round about emerged from the spring dark, drawn irresistibly to this new particoloured puddle of light.

They circled round the stalls and rides again and again, tramping across the rutted muddy site in search of entertainment and, in the case of the teenagers, of each other.

As I joined them, I was fascinated by this lighting up of the night, and looked up to the sky now made an even deeper black than was usual, and holding a deeper silence than on any ordinary night, through its contrast with the bubble of light and sound that enclosed us.

The smell of fried onions from the hot dog stand wafted through the press of bodies, and set my mouth to watering as it mingled with the odour of burnt sugar expelled by the candy floss machine that whirred pink cobweb strands around long sticks. Girls on the waltzer screamed for effect and the dodgems sparked and rumbled.

We never had enough money to try more than a ride or two, but once I won a goldfish in a water-filled plastic bag and Allyson managed to claim a coconut somehow.