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Walter Edward Reginald Pratley, known to his family as Reg, was a Berkshire farm boy with a dream. He wanted to escape the everyday and experience adventure. Hearing stories of his families lost heritage as travellers from his grandmother Lucy Clemstone Pratley awoke his dream. When the fairground came to his village of Appleton near Oxford he befriended them and decided that the fair would never leave him behind again when they packed up and left.
Fate, the Royal Navy, love and the Great War all stood in his way but he survived against the odds and managed to make his dream come true. During the 1920s and 1930s he became a respected Master Showman travelling for the famous William (Billy) Nichols and his fairground empire. His Gallopers were his pride and joy and he named the carved wooden horses after his children. His travelling circuit included London’s Forest Gate and annual fairgrounds at Reading, Newbury, Swindon, Abingdon, Banbury, Stratford Upon Avon to name a few and of course Oxford’s famous St Giles Fair.
A few months prior to WW2 tragedy struck him and his family. Nothing was ever the same again. This is his story and a story of that time when the fairground reigned supreme for leisure and excitement and was eagerly awaited each year by thousands in towns and villages across the country.
My grandfather’s story is truly remarkable and is now preserved as part of fairground and social history from the early 20th Century.
