Bill Dwyer
Assets reference: Carnival Fun - Bill Dwyer
Date: 1939
Collection: Carnival Fun !
Showmen soon became regulars at the Royal Easter Show after the Royal Agricultural Society first advertised for people to run sideshows in the 1880s. Since then sideshow alley and the carnival rides have been responsible for bringing smiles and laughter to thousands at the Show every day. Born in Western Australia but growing up in Sydney, Bill Dwyer started operating carnival rides at the Sydney Royal Easter Show in the 1930s. Here he remembers some of the later exploits of one of the great carnival families – the Durkins (edited extract from an interview with Richard Raxworthy in 1997).