Beast In Show: Scenes From An English Farm Exhibition
A look at the faces from one of Britain’s most important agricultural shows.
It’s been a busy morning at one of most important agricultural shows in Britain – the Royal Bath & West Show in Somerset – with the ferret racing and cheese tasting contests. As you gaze across the 240-acre fairgrounds, your eye is drawn to the surprisingly colorful array of hats in all shapes and sizes.
Worn in honor of Ladies Day, they make for a compelling view, but the main attraction here is the livestock.
“Since I started showing four years ago, cows have completely run my life. My friends don’t quite understand what it is to me; they see it as a bit silly or stupid. They don’t understand why I’m willing to stay up all night to look after a cow.”
The 150-year-old, four-day-long event is the first farming show of the summer season. The show’s Burke Trophy is one of the most coveted beef prizes in the country. As testimony to the Royal Bath & West’s pulling power, thousands of day-trippers (as many as 155,000 in recent years) have descended on this picturesque spot to see some of Britain’s finest and most obscure livestock carted in from across the country.
Right now it’s teatime and on this lustrous patch of countryside, the hustle and bustle of the fair has ground to a halt.
“I’ve been showing since I was 4. To be good at showing you have to train a lot and keep her head up. You need to be quite kind. My favorite thing about the shows is playing with the cows and hearing all the different noises of the animals. I’m going to be a dairy farmer when I’m older, like my dad.”
Despite the gray sky, children somersault down a grassy hill, past clusters of picnicking families on blankets. “This is England of old,” says 73-year-old Eileen Dawkins, swaying to the gentle hum of music wafting from a nearby bandstand. During breaks in the music, you can just make out the bleating of sheep and cries of judges in the background.
“Kunekune make really nice sausages but we generally try to sell them as pets. Dogs love them. We had a fire one year and had to rescue one of the piglets from the fire. After that one of our bitches took on the mother role; they even shared a bed.”
To celebrate the show’s 150th year, a record-breaking 5-foot-tall Victoria sponge cake has been concocted from 600 eggs and 100 pounds of sugar and flour. The cake is so large it has to be ever so carefully delivered by a forklift.
“Colonel Hawthorn Honey is my best pal. She’s quite placid and she’s got a good temperament; she will budge me but not very often. On the farm I wash her, feed her and walk her. She likes her food. She don’t really like loading in the trailer and cold baths and being lonely.”
“Me and Beth help this old woman who’s about 80. Her name is Valerie and these are her sheep. Bossum is really sweet; he’s one of the friendly ones. Him and Cooli are friends. ”
Humongous confections aside, the show is serious business: A win means industry kudos and direct advertising for the winning animals. For the second time in three years, the Burke Trophy goes to a pair of glossy-coated Aberdeen-Angus cattle the size of small trucks, while over at the pig championships a milky-white Landrace sow named Prestcombe Vega 8 takes the title. Twenty-year-old Alice Keith owns the sow and this is the fifth time she’s led an animal from one of her family’s farms in nearby Prestleigh to victory.
Twenty-nine breeds of sheep, including the Dorset Horn, which Fooks breeds, competed in the show.
“We’ve shown Brewser since he was a lamb. He’s a nice ram; no one’s scared to get in the ring with him. But if he wants to be stubborn he will be. He can be a bit moody at shows if he’s been out on the hot days; you have to have a couple of people dragging him around the ring.”
As the show wraps up, so – miraculously – do the clouds. This mostly stormy corner of rural England is suddenly bathed in light. It cements this day in Royal Bath & West history as one of the most uplifting moments in the British farming calendar. “I’ll drink to that!” says Dawkins, raising a Styrofoam cup. “Bottoms up!”
“By rules of the Alpaca Society these animals have to be shown in off-paddock conditions. You don’t wash them, brush them; just pick out the large lumps. He’s a good animal but his coat is slightly – how can I say? – coarse.”
“I worked at Barclays Bank for 30 years. My husband bred pedigree cattle and showed them. When he died I was left with the cattle. I make a fuss of Mandalay Juliette. I give her a wash with the power hose and then she’s quite happy. She sort of thinks, ‘Oh yes, I’m nice and clean now,’ and prances around a bit.”
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