Review: The Royal Bath and West Show 2010
Wednesday 2 June 2010
The biggest disappointment of the Royal Bath and West Show 2010, was exactly how many fantastic activities, events and hidden gems of trade stands that it is not possible to fit into one action packed day.
For those who may not have visited the show since the immediate devastating impact of the foot and mouth outbreak in the early 2000s, when livestock entries were low and the jacuzzi companies ruled, the show is truly back on top form.
The Holt Morris Dancers from Wiltshire
The first surprise of the day was unexpectedly telling your children that “Morris Dancing is fantastic”. This is fantastic in the sense that you finally get to sit down with a picnic, whilst watching skill and entertainment taking place on a wonderful village green, peppered with seating, traditional fairground rides and tents full of interesting things for kids.
Bath and West Railway inside the showground
Many of the great family activities were sign posted, but it is the countryside crafts nestling slightly off the beaten track that are well worth looking out for. Seek out the Dry Stone Walling Association, the Exmoor Chainsaw Carving, the beehives, the blacksmiths on the Village Green and of course, the morris dancers – Wednesday’s dancers were the Holt Morris from Wiltshire.
The Oxford Sandy and Black pig with its distinctive markings
For the farmyard fans, there are the traditional livestock classes with poultry, cattle, pigs, goats and sheep. Horses, alpacas, ducks, bugs and other animals could also be found on independent stalls.
For the food lover, there are plenty of chances to sample local and organic produce and make yourself well at home in the cheese and cider areas.
Toddlers try out different nee nahs with the Avon and Somerset Police
The surprising winner of the day turned out to be the Avon and Somerset Police, whose mammoth sized stand drew in crowds of toddlers throughout the day with their flashing nee nahs of many varieties. Whilst the boys in blue and even police horses continued their impressively friendly means of forging positive relationships with the local communities, hoards of grubby handed, muddy booted toddlers crawled through police cars disconnecting everything possible, managing to get lights to flash and genuinely loving the opportunity.
Learning to build walls with the Dry Stone Walling Association
The Imagineering Fair is also a big must, packed full of the kind of clever, creative and scientific minded people the UK is always lacking. The huge tent is well represented by local companies and organisations in the science and technology fields. All came equip with brilliant free activities for children of all ages, giving them a chance to make or take part in clever experiments. Even tots sat down to design their own aircraft whilst older children were actually building and flying ones they had made.
Accessibility at the show is excellent for both prams and wheelchairs. There were plenty of permanent well flagged toilet blocks with little to no queues.
Efforts had been made to allow older agricultural buildings reasonably good access to wheelchair users, with polite stewards checking to make sure that everything was to satisfaction.
Fantastic traffic management meant that an early arrival and late exit to the ground was easy. These efforts were hampered somewhat by the few idiots determined to cause hold ups by taking faster moving queues to different locations and dangerously pushing into traffic at the end.
A visit to the show could easily be spread over more than one day. Whether you would want to or not is a different matter. Each day comes with slightly different entertainment and new possibilities, all leading to utter exhaustion.
Do buy the clearly designed programme to find out what’s on where and study it well.
As a half term outing, this show must be marked in the family diary annually. It is the essential south west family day out.
The Royal Bath and West Show runs from 2 – 5 June 2010
For more information, visit: www.bathandwest.com