Rules should be bent a little to avoid fair fiasco
MY husband and I were looking forward to going to the Dickensian fair in St Ives on Sunday. I ve been for the past two years and it surpassed a heavily hyped one I went to in Holland in terms of atmosphere and the quality of goods on display. It s somethi
MY husband and I were looking forward to going to the Dickensian fair in St Ives on Sunday. I've been for the past two years and it surpassed a heavily hyped one I went to in Holland in terms of atmosphere and the quality of goods on display. It's something we can be proud of in this town, along with many other St Ives initiatives.
When we got into town we heard a rock band (not very Dickensian) and saw the fair. Santa had turned up and I was looking for where to hand in my prize draw ticket. But there were only about three ladies in Dickensian costume that we could see.
We went up to the far end near Boots thinking we'd missed something, only to see a tiny poster on the corner opposite Fran Cars to indicate the fair had been cancelled.
We found out that the reason was that because of health and safety, and a tent blowing over, that the fair had been cancelled just after 6am.
Is this what we have come to, for the rule-mongers in our society to lack common sense and a bit of get-up-and-go?
What about all the hard work, preparation and effort by the stall holders and everyone else involved? What about all the money spent on advertising, etc?
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In this stupid compensation era, and this culture of fear whenever health and safety is mentioned, why can we not use our basic good sense and all muck in together?
Sales of mulled wine and sandbags would have gone through the roof!
I'm really disappointed on behalf of everyone looking forward to a repeat of last year's success.
I think the decision made was a total knee-jerk reaction in keeping with general paranoia and constant appeasement of ridiculous laws which are spoiling everything.
What about individual freedom and responsibility for one's own actions?
If all precautions had been taken to allow people to use their common sense and judgement and batten everything down, could we not be left in peace to make our own judgements and not spoil everything for the minority, who seem to be hell-bent on adhering to every single rule.
Liz Carran
Myrtle Green
St Ives
