The notion of the PNE has always given me mixed feelings. First off I think: hype, crowds, weather, parking, junk food, expense, noise, danger (those speeding rides), all of this amidst seemingly great confusion and lineups for everything.

However even taking all of this into account, the PNE, in much the same way perhaps as the secular part of the Christmas celebration with all of its tacky commercialism and emotional stress, somehow seems to prevail year after year. We could blame the whole thing on the children! The fair has been a regular part of my family life for the past thirty years.

In 1997, moved by this sentiment, and the growing atmosphere of uncertainty surrounding the future of the PNE at it's Hastings park site, I began working on a photographic project to study and record aspects of the fair which I felt might be radically altered or even altogether lost.