WHILE youngsters were enjoying the fun of the fair during the weekend's Dickensian Festival at Ulverston a rather smaller fairground ride was on display to visitors.

A shop in market Street had an intricate model of a fairground roundabout in the window which had been made by Bill stables and was displayed by the Newby family.

Mr Stables died, aged 85, in 2000, and was well known for his craft and model engineering skills.

His steam-driven roundabout was based on the machines which were a common site on travelling fairgrounds from the 1880s to the 1930s.

The ride took eight years to construct as a spare-time project between 1940 and 1948 and was built around a steam engine which took a year to build.

The horses and cockerels on the ride were hand carved from wood.

Mr Stables was a carpenter by trade but never lost his enthusiasm to learn new techniques.

He studied at Furness College from 1968 to 1993 - by which his course tutor said there was nothing left to show him.

Among his other steam-powered models was a third-scale Emerson and Hazard engine - called Gavioli Bill - built with the aid of photographs and his own memories of similar engines in use.