Colourful, boisterous and often bawdy, the old-time fairs punctuated the routine of the year like exploding stars in the firmament. They were also a vital part of England's economy. This comprehensive and readable study examines a long neglected subject and its impact on trade and everyday lives.

Based not only on wide exploration of local sources,museum and library archives, but also on extended interviews with old farmers and dealers, the book traces the fair's history fromearly Saxon times to the present day,examining why today's fairs are based purely on entertainment rather than trade. David Kerr Cameron traces the fair's history from its lowly beginnings in the ancient landscape, through its periods of growth under the patronage of the Church and the granting of royal charters and its eventual transformation into the all-important livestock and specialist events of the regions. From Carlisle to Cornwall, he highlights the fair's fame and its infamy: the dealers, the merchants, the cheap jacks, the jugglers and the fiddlers, the ever-present pickpockets and prostitutes, and the people who flo cked to it and made it what it was - exciting, explosive and often menacing and violent.

Included here are the great fairs of the late Middle Ages with their staggering gamut of commodities; the tremendous sheep gatherings of the West Country; the turbulent cattle fairs of Barnet and St Faith's that sent beef to London's tables; the notorious cloth fair of St Bartholomew; and the mop fairs where servants were ritually bought and sold.

This book is a rich tapestry, superbly illustrated in full colour and black and white, drawing together the many strands of theEnglish fair's story and charting its final,unlamented decline. It is a vivid, fascinating,sometimes violent tableau.

Books by David Kerr Cameron

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David Kerr Cameron

When British servicemen were observing nuclear tests in the Pacific during the 1950s, the Prime Minister of the time, Sir Anthony Eden, was warned that they risked a lingering death from cancer. His response is reported to have been, 'A pity, but we cannot help it.'

A Kist of Sorrows

Last night I took the old roads and heard the old speak. I listened again to the sdll voices and felt the sting of the wind on my cheek. And it was good, like a home-coming.

The old track is grass-grown, almost obliterated by the years, and I am a stranger now where the old wind wanders, where it reeshles the dry broom and tugs at the tufted grass. The hill is quiet, shorn of voices.

Time has mellowed the stones, as it has sutured the hurts of the heart; hallowed them as the last reminder of the folk who once had their life and their being here. They rest, stilled forever in their coffin'd sleep, and now on the hill nature has reclaimed her own.

The Gaberlunzie Man

McQaid is a sword - and occasionally dagger - for hire in the turbulent Highlands, as disillusionment grows against the Hanoverian regime. On a fine summer night in 1745 he is summoned to the bedside of the dying laird of Auchlour and commissioned on the most secret errand of his life ...

London Pleasures, From Restoration to Regency

The year 1660 witnessed not only the restoration of the monarchy but also the beginning of a new lusty and licentious age. Under the Merry Monarch, Charles II, London shurgged off Puritanism and launched itself into debauchery to enjoy two centries of uninhibited pleasure. This richly evocative portrayal of the capital will take you on an unforgettable historical pleasure trip.

Willie Gavin, Crofter Man

David Kerr Cameron has captured and recorded for future generations a culture and a landscape that have now gone forever

The Ballard And The Plough | A Folk-History of the Scottish Farmtouns

Quoting generously from bothy ballads, David Kerr Cameron has written a book rich in anecdote and insight.

The Cornkister Days | A Portrait of a land and it rituals

With a knowledge and a skill that reveals his passion for the land and its people, David Kerr Cameron picks his way through the rural upheavals and developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries towards the landscape we recognise today. In doing so he provides a wide-sweeping and unforgettable view of our rural history and completes his great rural trilogy portraying the old farming landscapes of Scotland's North-east Lowlands.

The English Fair

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David Kerr Cameron was born in Aberdeenshire in 1928.

After National Service in the RAF he joined Kirriemuir Herald, a Scottish weekly, 1951. He worked at various newspapers and magazines, including the Farming Express, where he was managing editor.

In 1966 he joined the Daily Telegraph, where he was, in succession, a Features Sub-Editor, Chief Features Sub-Editor, Weekend section/Books section production Sub-Editor of both Sunday and daily pages, and finally Sub-Editor on Arts desk. He retired from the Daily Telegraph in 1993.

He never forgot the rigours of farming life in Aberdeenshire, which he wrote about with un-sentimental vividness in his books.

The Ballad and the Plough (1978), Willie Gavin, Crofter Man (1980), and The Cornkister Days (1984), all of which won Scottish Arts Council Awards, gave the social history of the North-East a readability that drew comparisons with the work of the late John Prebble.