Lost Negatives Reveal Pat Collins Fair in the 1960s

Newly Scanned Negatives Reveal Forgotten Joy: Pat Collins Funfair in 1960s Birmingham

A remarkable discovery of long-forgotten photographic negatives has brought a raw and intimate glimpse into Birmingaham and the Black Country’s past. Captured by local photographer Peter Donnelly in the mid-1960s, the rediscovered images—recently digitised from Kodak Tri-X 400 film—document a moment in time when Pat Collins Funfair lit up the derelict "waste lands" of urban Birmingham.

The grainy monochrome photographs are steeped in nostalgia. Children grin beneath oversized coats, their hands sticky from toffee apples. The rides—loom like giants behind them, wrapped in fog and cigarette smoke. 

Local vendors shout beneath hand-painted signage. These are not posed portraits but candid, slice-of-life frames from a city caught between post-war rubble and the approaching modernity of the 1970s.

Donnelly’s lens captures not only the thrill of the travelling funfair but also its melancholic beauty—an escape constructed on Birmingham’s industrial scars, where once stood factories and now flickered fairground lights.

“Photography like this tells the truth of working-class joy,” says a local archivist. “It’s not just about the fair—it’s about who we were.”

Each frame resonates with the signature look of Kodak Tri-X: high contrast, rich blacks, and a tactile grain that adds authenticity to every shadowed face. 

These scans are now being curated into a community-led exhibition and short film project, highlighting the Black Country's cultural memory and the role the funfair played in shaping youth and street culture in post-war Britain.

For many, it’s not just a visual time capsule—it’s a personal history.

Pat Collins Fun Fair Birmingham – A Tradition of Thrills and Family Fun

Pat Collins Fun Fair in Birmingham is one of the UK’s most beloved travelling funfairs, bringing over a century of vibrant entertainment to the heart of the Midlands. With its origins dating back to 1899, this historic fair transforms open urban spaces into lively arenas filled with rides, stalls, and nostalgia. From classic attractions like the Waltzer and Helter Skelter to modern thrill rides and traditional game booths, Pat Collins Fun Fair continues to capture the imagination of families and fun-seekers across generations. Whether it’s set up at Cannon Hill Park, Perry Barr, or Tipton’s Jubilee Park, the fair offers an unforgettable experience for all ages.

"As If It Were Yesterday" softback book 153 pages photographs and poetry - available only on Amazon

"As If It Were Yesterday" softback book 153 pages photographs and poetry available only on Amazon
Birmingham & The Black Country Remembered 1962 - 1965

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Were-Yesterday-Birmingham-Photographs-Remembered/dp/1704391431


Location: Birmingham, UK

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The Telegraph

Peter Donnelly's prize-winning essay offers a brilliant example of how local, and often unprepossessing, backgrounds can provide the material for an outstanding colour story. All his photographs were taken within a few miles of his home in Birmingham, Brierley Hill, at Blackheath, Bilston and Cradley Heath. He took them over a period of several months while on weekend walks along the deserted banks of the local canals. "Most evenings I never met a soul," Mr Donnelly recalls. "There was an air of isolation, and often desolation, over the whole scene, and this is what I have tried to capture in my photographs." The camera used was a Pentakon F and the film Agfa and Kodachrome.
by Dr Carl Chinn MBE
Peter Donnelly was born in Birmingham, educated at Corpus Christi junior school, Stechford and later at the holy rosary, Saltley. While at the Holy Rosary he took and passed a drawing examination for Moseley school of art at which he spent several years tuning his artistic talent.

On leaving the art school he joined Birmingham printers, Sam Currier & Son in brook street, St Pauls square, as an apprentice commercial artist. After completing his apprenticeship he left Sam Currier and worked at various printers and advertising agencies gaining valuable experience before starting with his working associate Bob Burns (typographer). Donnelly Burns Graphic Design studio was in Chapel Street, Lye before moving to larger premises in Cradley heath then Harborne.

Before starting the business Peter entered and won the Sunday Telegraph national photographic competition. He submitted an essay of photographs illustrating the demise of the Birmingham and Black Country canals with fellow photographer Norman Fletcher. To Peter and Norman, Midlands photographers and photographic societies seemingly had ignored the once great industrial arena that surrounded their everyday lives.

What an arena! what powerful exiting subjects for the camera; neglected canals, weed and web woven towpaths, old worn out narrow boats – redundant and half submerged in silted murky brown waters; steam trains rattling, hissing and bumping their waggons into line and the rail men who worked the line at that time.

Old foundries, run down factories and scrapyards – the industrial flotsam of a once great manufacturing region. Many six o’clock early morning starts were walked and many miles covered by Peter and his camera.

Now over 60 years later, photographs taken during those early excursions are being published - looking back at the time, long before the surge of change and reconstruction 1962 - 1965