The Life of an Aussie Carnival Family, Close Up

For the Flahertys, carnivals are in the blood. Four generations of them—grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren—have all been carnies, and today they continue to drive around New South Wales, Queensland, and the Northern Territory with trailers of rides and tents, setting up for a week before moving on.

The Flahertys have been carnies since the 1920s, when the family roamed the UK countryside with their games of luck, freak shows, burlesque dancers, and rides. The UK never experienced the "Roaring 20s" that the US did; post-war unemployment was high while disposable income was low. And this is one possible reason the family emigrated to Australia, although they're not 100 percent sure.

"The family moved to Australia but I don’t remember why," explains Kerry Flaherty, 70 years-old, and the patriarch of Flaherty Family Amusements. He’s between two bites of a margarine sandwich and offers me a glass of coke. I accept politely, because Kerry seems like the kind of guy you wouldn't want to offend. "He's tired today," apologises his wife Lynn, inviting me to sit on the blue leatherette bench of their caravan.

This is how I find myself eating lunch with the Flahertys, around a laminated table in their caravan, which is parked on the edge of Lake Illawarra. Here, it’s as if nothing has moved since the 70s. The TV is on in the background. There are curtains styled on couches, and plastic Star Wars figurines. In fact, as we talk, I become more and more fascinated by the way the family avoids change and holds tradition sacred. In some ways it’s their most notable characteristic.

Every Monday the Flaherty family—around 30 of them—move to a new place. They pack up their rides, which include a carousel, a spinning octopus, a catch-a-duck sidestall, some dodgem cars, and a giant upside-down swinging thing called a Shock Wave. And then they drive for hours to a field or reserve in another town. Then it's shopping, cleaning, housework, paperwork, safety inspections, and sorting anything that wasn't sorted on the road. Once those things are done, the family chill in their caravans, or go to find cafés with internet access. The fair comes to life from Friday night until Sunday night, giving them just two full days to earn their bread and butter before repacking and leaving. And it's the same story every week, 12 months of the year, for nearly 100 years. In total, the family visits 42 cities each year.

The Flaherty kids begin learning the business at the age of seven. They start out by manning the lucky dip stalls on weekends, and during the week they follow correspondence courses on the net. Kathryn, who is in her late 20s, helps the kids with their homework. She is one of the few in the family who went to school, although she says it was a different school each week. She tells me she could have left the family business, found a nice guy, and studied whatever she wanted at uni—but she chose to make fairy floss in the food truck, with the dogs snuffling around her feet.

I tell her that I went the exact opposite decision. I went to uni and now I'm trying to make a living from writing, which she seems to find amusing. “When you've traveled your whole life, you can’t stay in the same spot too long. You just go crazy.” But then she admits she enjoys writing science fiction stories which sometimes get published in magazines, even if it’s not a career option. "You can’t make a living from writing,” she says. “Better to work in the family business."

They seem like a happy bunch, the Flahertys, even if they repeat that the life of a carnie isn’t what it used to be. "We can’t get rich anymore,” says Lynn. “Those days are gone. But as long as we can live comfortably, pay our bills, pay for our stuff, we're happy with that."

"I'm gonna tell you what ruined our business," says Kerry, interrupting her. "The poker machines, video games, and movie theaters. People prefer putting money in a machine than spending $10 on rides and fairy floss for their kids." Everyone around the table nods.

Even if the amusement industry has changed a lot, the carnie lifestyle is still pretty much the same. "We have a gypsy lifestyle," Lynn says after lunch, walking me around. "When we wake up in the morning we could be anywhere, Darwin, Burke, the Gold Coast. The outside location changes every week, but in here nothing changes.” And she waves an arm at the rides. “This, here, is home."

I ask if she’s happy and she says she is. “We’re all happy! We live together, but not on top of each other. Everyone respects the privacy of the others. You knock before you get in, you don’t chat if the other doesn’t want to chat, that sort of thing.”

I finally leave them, feeling reluctant to go. I’d enjoyed the sense of timelessness in this strange, artificial paradise. It felt like a family environment that doesn’t exist so much anymore, and I suppose that’s the whole point.

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