Home from Home: Bo'ness Children's Fair Festival

On Sunday 1st July I visited the biggest children's fair in the UK. I had no idea there was such a thing 15 minutes from the house. Our neighbours across the road at number 13 (Ken and Jackie) invited me to join them for a drive down to Bo'ness and a wander around the streets and decorative houses done up for the fair. Nicole Bell was chosen to be Queen for 2012.

Bo'ness in Falkirk celebrates each year the freedom for children not to work down the mines.

Here's a bit of background history...

Until the latter part of the 18th century, it was customary for all Scottish miners to be thirled, that is, bound to the pits, as were any children who were born to them while they worked in them. Thus the bondage was continued from generation to generation and if any of the miners tried to escape from virtual slavery the colliery masters had the power to send their overseers to drag them back and to punish them severely. Even when a colliery owner sold his pit, the miners were included as part of the transaction. At last, 1774, a law was passed forbidding the thirling of miners and their families to the coal pits, but those already tied to the mines were not granted their freedom straightaway and it was not until 1779 that an Act declared that, "all the colliers in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, are hereby declared to be free from their servitude."

The Fair - or to give it its official title - Bo'ness Children's Fair Festival - is without a doubt the most important even in our town's yearly calendar. It's an event that every boy or girl lucky enough to be brought up in this lovely old grey town of ours, has loved since early childhood - a love that remains with us for the rest of our lives.