Here are my earliest memories of funfairs: I remember being in a bumper car with my father, and my mother being unhappy because we were doing a little too much bumping.
After that, I’m a teenager, during the October fair in Ballinasloe. The ride, which was popular, consisted of a large circular frame, divided up into sections for each person to stand upright. No one was strapped in. The only safety feature was a flimsy chain across each section. It would spin furiously, until the centrifugal force had pinned everyone into position. Then it would rise on one axis, giving the customers a queasily rotating view of the ground and the sky.
But on this occasion, one of the customers had (presumably) spent some quality time in the pub beforehand. The combination of a few pints plus the physical sensation of being hurled around proved too much.
What was ghoulishly fascinating was the trajectory of the puke. It erupted from the person, but because we were still locked in a thunderous spin, it didn’t go anywhere. It hovered in the middle of the ring. Everyone watched it: knowing that as soon as the loop slowed down, the laws of physics would cause someone to be splattered with regurgitated Guinness.
All I can remember is that it didn’t land on me.
It may have been this experience, but at some stage I came to the conclusion that I really don’t enjoy funfair rides. I avoid them when I can, though for a lot of my life that hasn’t been possible. I blame the children.
Because of them, I’ve been hurled around the place and spun through the air. I usually pass the time by trying to calculate where I will land when whatever contraption I’m strapped into snaps off.
[ Seán Moncrieff: The word ‘old’ has become an insult. If you’re old, it’s all overOpens in new window ]
Daughter Number Four is particularly keen on this kind of thing. Because of her, myself and Herself had to board a swinging, rotating monstrosity on St Patrick’s Day that jangled our nerves so completely we had to sit on the pavement for a while afterwards. She is a veteran of Emerald Park and has badgered us into taking rides that combine not just physical dislocation, but a thorough soaking. The last time we took The Viking Voyage, the drying machine was out of order. I spent most of the day looking like I had wet myself.
No, I hadn’t.
It’s got to the stage where myself and Herself are simply refusing to board some of these rollercoasters, but Daughter Number Four is quite happy to get on alone. And afterwards, she’ll be shining with joy, her system pumped with adrenaline and endorphins. The experience triggers her fight-or-flight response, but not, it seems, to an alarming degree: deep down, she doesn’t believe anything can go wrong.
[ Nothing pushes my BS detector into overdrive more than a hotel spaOpens in new window ]
What’s curious about all this is if you bring Daughter Number Four to a playground, she can be nervous about climbing monkey bars, even though she’s much closer to the ground, she’s not spinning and she has far more control over the situation. She is aware of this contradiction – because we keep pointing it out – but can’t explain it.
We once brought her to Disneyland Paris, where many of the rides were physical rollercoasters, but also had a virtual reality component. And even though the experience was pretty much the same, I found them far less disturbing. I can’t explain that either.
Similarly, I’m not at all scared of flying, even though planes do crash occasionally. I’m convinced that even if the plane does crash, I’ll survive it intact. No reason for that.
Understandably, science tries to find mechanistic explanations as to why people are scared of one thing but not scared of another. Past trauma. Anxiety. Lack of control. But such explanations are usually insufficient and often contradictory. Perhaps it’s better to accept that people are often a mystery. Especially to themselves.
