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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: General Interest
- Published: 02/15/2016
The Great Yorkshire
The young lady behind in a Fiesta must have forgotten that it was the first day of the Yorkshire Show and I could see her anxiously tap, tapping her steering wheel in my mirror. We were on the outskirts of Harrogate and half an hour later we were a bit further. The tapping had changed to an intermittent banging and her face looked green with tension, she was definitely seriously late for the office.
We didn't have a badge so the marshals waved us to the distant car park. The crowds flowed in through the ticket booths with some expectancy. Food, freebies, unknown electric mixers, crafts, started us off and a view that confirmed we'd never see it all, even if we stayed a week.
Some of the bulls were being cleaned down with hot water from a pressure cleaner and after the initial jump when the hot gush hit them they stretched out and luxuriated in it. Not far away were the ostriches, to be farmed for food. I had a vision of a huge ostrich leg on a barbecue with a hundredweight of charcoal. The sweating cooks trying to get the knuckle from overhanging into next door's garden.
A small plane flew overhead trailing a long line of advertising letters that must have been aimed at the foreign visitors or maybe there was a competition somewhere to determine what it meant.
Everywhere corporate entertainment flourished and smiles and white wine today would hopefully mean the payment of debts tomorrow.
All the livestock and the flowers as well, are what dreams are made of. Certainly there are not many around like that in the real world of everyday farming and gardening.
One area that I thought was a display of sheltered housing bungalows with uniformed security guard turned out to be the 'badges' only club. All was beautifully presented though including the International 'Hut'.
The toilets on site are unusual in that the gents have vast rows of urinals. If every male went to the loo at the same moment they would each find a stall - but there were queues outside the ladies. Have you ever thought that the first thing that practically everyone does after using the toilet is to reach for the hot tap. This means that the collection of germs there must be quite cosmopolitan, nay, even international!
Agricultural Machinery is an important area of trade. Of 26 thousand farmers who visit the show, 15 thousand make significant purchases. This is surprising when quite a lot of the welding displayed appears to have been done by the third world YTS. A thought struck me that maybe that's what the International 'Hut' is, a place where third world painters cover up the bad welding.
The smooth talking salesmen don't wear wellies.
As the day passed the vast spectrum of people, tired, happy, but wishing they could have seen just a little bit more started to drift home. Some had wasted the brilliant experience by spending the day drinking. A last look into the Main Ring reveals stagecoaches from the glorious past careering round with much more atmosphere than Ben Hur chariots.
We set of home, and leave it to the 'badges', vowing to see what we'd missed next year.
I looked for the young lady in the Fiesta but she must've worked late, probably cursing the Yorkshire Show.
The Great Yorkshire(Ossie Durrans)
The Great Yorkshire
The young lady behind in a Fiesta must have forgotten that it was the first day of the Yorkshire Show and I could see her anxiously tap, tapping her steering wheel in my mirror. We were on the outskirts of Harrogate and half an hour later we were a bit further. The tapping had changed to an intermittent banging and her face looked green with tension, she was definitely seriously late for the office.
We didn't have a badge so the marshals waved us to the distant car park. The crowds flowed in through the ticket booths with some expectancy. Food, freebies, unknown electric mixers, crafts, started us off and a view that confirmed we'd never see it all, even if we stayed a week.
Some of the bulls were being cleaned down with hot water from a pressure cleaner and after the initial jump when the hot gush hit them they stretched out and luxuriated in it. Not far away were the ostriches, to be farmed for food. I had a vision of a huge ostrich leg on a barbecue with a hundredweight of charcoal. The sweating cooks trying to get the knuckle from overhanging into next door's garden.
A small plane flew overhead trailing a long line of advertising letters that must have been aimed at the foreign visitors or maybe there was a competition somewhere to determine what it meant.
Everywhere corporate entertainment flourished and smiles and white wine today would hopefully mean the payment of debts tomorrow.
All the livestock and the flowers as well, are what dreams are made of. Certainly there are not many around like that in the real world of everyday farming and gardening.
One area that I thought was a display of sheltered housing bungalows with uniformed security guard turned out to be the 'badges' only club. All was beautifully presented though including the International 'Hut'.
The toilets on site are unusual in that the gents have vast rows of urinals. If every male went to the loo at the same moment they would each find a stall - but there were queues outside the ladies. Have you ever thought that the first thing that practically everyone does after using the toilet is to reach for the hot tap. This means that the collection of germs there must be quite cosmopolitan, nay, even international!
Agricultural Machinery is an important area of trade. Of 26 thousand farmers who visit the show, 15 thousand make significant purchases. This is surprising when quite a lot of the welding displayed appears to have been done by the third world YTS. A thought struck me that maybe that's what the International 'Hut' is, a place where third world painters cover up the bad welding.
The smooth talking salesmen don't wear wellies.
As the day passed the vast spectrum of people, tired, happy, but wishing they could have seen just a little bit more started to drift home. Some had wasted the brilliant experience by spending the day drinking. A last look into the Main Ring reveals stagecoaches from the glorious past careering round with much more atmosphere than Ben Hur chariots.
We set of home, and leave it to the 'badges', vowing to see what we'd missed next year.
I looked for the young lady in the Fiesta but she must've worked late, probably cursing the Yorkshire Show.
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