A few weeks ago, the Coney Beach fair closed its gates for the last time. Even though I was ill that weekend, I topped myself up with as many painkillers as I could find and set out to try and document its final day, as well as try to preserve at least an idea of the place.
I only moved to Porthcawl in the last few years, and I used to joke before the big move that lots of people think of it as “posh,” whereas to me it was a place we used to (en masse) get the social club bus to in the summer holidays. We’d fill up on rides, chips, and sunburn, and head back north to Merthyr, sun-kissed and bleary-eyed. I asked permission to go in on the final day (as I have with other endings I’ve documented), as though in many ways these are public spaces, they are also deeply personal.
Many of the places I try to capture are “past their prime” to some, but are irrevocably linchpins of their communities. It’s been well over 30 years now since my days on the social club bus from Merthyr, but for decades after, and many decades before, Coney Beach offered a place of respite for generations of people — not just in Wales, but all over the UK.
Walking around the fair, you can always hear accents from all over the country. Whether you agree with current plans for Porthcawl or not, few would argue against the idea that the Coney Beach fairground has long been the beating heart of this community.
As I wandered around that final day, an elderly lady stopped me to talk about the fair. She was also from Merthyr (all the best ones are). She told me how she’d miss the fair, and that her father would bring her as a child — a memory she treasured so much that she still came to Coney once a fortnight just to wander and reminisce. Another young couple asked me to send them a copy of a photo I’d snapped as the young girl’s grandfather used to bring her on family holidays. Now that he has dementia, she wanted to print the photo to place on his bedside table. It’s conversations like these that make you realise that places like this don’t just exist within communities but they live on inside the people who treasure them. They are more than day trips from the social club; they are fragments of family memory.
The documentation of these sorts of places is always hard. To have so much history shows. I wrote recently that some see my imagery as “grim,” but I like to think it shows these places for what they are: symbols of the passing of time — of places loved before and loved still, with the scars to show it.
The photos from that final day aren’t just records of an ending but reminders of what these spaces mean. They’re proof that even as places fade, the stories they hold never quite disappear. And maybe, even though some say it’s had its day, that’s the real beauty of Coney Beach — that even as the lights fade and the gates close, the waltzers still spin on in the hearts of those who will always hold it dear.
The below images are from that final day, with a selection of both digital and analog images taken over the last few years
This image, like a lot that I take around wales, is a site that thousands of people have probably walked past every day. There’s a story already here – what’s the chair for (fag breaks?), how long has it been there? I bet there are marks where feet have rested for so long. The ramp, one of my favourite details anywhere, the ancient “quick fix”. The cracked tiles, the peeled lettering, the ironically burnt looking fireman’s switch.
The entrance, that some might say is grim, is an important one, the manor suite, bold colours and art deco styled typography. I did some digging and found records of old boxing club presentations there, weddings, the northern soul rave events (available on YouTube) – I also found out the owners themselves had their wedding reception there.
So it’s not the grim that pulls me to images like this, it’s the evidence, despite the lack of people in the photo , of how people and places are inexorably tied together until one or both are gone.
Some will look at this picture and think “that’s grim” – others might look and see these details, others will see none of them – but will see those bright lights and hear the pounding music on a friday night, the foot thumps of can can girls, their partners head on their shoulder for their first dance.
Easily one of the most recognisable landmarks of Porthcawl – the beach party ride
Even though the fair has gone, there will always be signs that it existed, in some cases literally. These weather-beaten directions now point to somewhere that no longer is. They’re small, unintentional memorials to a place that to so many defined that summer is here. The paint is chipped and the words are fading, but they hold on as a reminder of what once brought people together here. It feels like the town hasn’t quite caught up with the loss yet, still pointing toward the fair as if it might come back.
KarlJones.Photography 