Stromness Dragon

Dounby Show - bonny flooers

In times gone by the skills of the farmers’ wives would provide the family with meals made from the farm produce. Preserves would make good use of fruit, cakes and pies would ensure that a hungry working man had a piece for out in the field, dried herbs could be used to flavour the dishes during the winter months. Yarn too was put to good use – the shorn wool was spun by hand and knitted or woven into garments for the family. The home would be made jolly with decorative handcrafts and bunches of wild flowers. If you took pride in your abilities, and wanted to show the other farmers’ wives what you could do, and demonstrate skills to the young folk, what better platform could there be than the indoor event which runs alongside the one with the coos? Thus we have the fabulous horticultural shows.

A year or two back I attended the County Horticultural Show in Kirkwall, and I was a bit disappointed. It was mostly minimal artistic flower arrangements, and a few ropey-looking runner beans. Turns out that the County do is a paltry affair, and the very best exhibits are held back for the more local shows such as the Hope Show and the Dounby Show. The Hope show particularly was spectacular – apparently it is famous for being very good – and my eyes were popping out of my head!

That one at the end had 3 extra cherries, I'm positive

First up, the cakes. Did you know there are rules for entry to the cake competitions? They have to be in rectangular tins, for a start. The scones have to be no more than 12cm in diameter. But the most astounding thing is this……they have to follow the SAME RECIPE. Now I know many of you will be raising your eyes heavenwards and thinking ‘well obviously’. But this was news to me. No scouring recipe books for that perfect Victoria Sponge. No phoning auntie Beryl for secret ingredients tips. You have to purchase the Schedule a fortnight before, and use only the ingredients listed for each cake. Some folk practice like mad, apparently – I suppose their nearest and dearest get the benefit. I wonder what would happen if you sneaked in an extra egg? D’you think they can tell?

We had a healthy debate about whether the cakes were actually eaten – Aged P claims that down her way, the judges take a small sample from the underside of the cake to taste, and leave the top looking its best. For smaller cakes, we thought perhaps they make 6, and 1 gets eaten. Can anyone enlighten me? New to country living, I suspect it will be many years before I feel confident enough to attempt anything like a sultana loaf or an oven scone for a show.

I am, however, tempted to have a go in the jams and preserves section, as my blackcurrant jam has a few admirers, hem hem. In the wine-making section there were very few entries, so Mr Dragon is confident of a placing next year! There is also a chance to show off our cute bantam eggs – although the little grey hens will have to raise the game a bit, we haven’t had an egg for about 10 days now. Have they stopped laying for the winter? It’s still August!

Omelettes for tea then

I could weep with a sense of inadequacy when I see the handicraft sections – these exhibitors have been knitting and crocheting and appliquéing for decades and by golly it shows. This is a very well deserved first prize!

How lovely is this?

Then there’s the fruit and veg. Get a saucer. Put some shredded blue tissue paper in the middle. Surround the paper with 10 firm, plump gooseberries. Sit back and reap the admiration of your peers and the judges. Or, find a handy wicker basket and, channelling Bert Fry and Jo Grundy (Archers reference for the uninitiated) fill it with your finest cabbages and let a shaft of late afternoon sunlight play on the fresh green leaves.

Ambridge would be proud

And who can forget the tension of the public decanting of the tattie-in-a-bucket competition? See Barebraes for details of the Rousay/Shapinsay rivalry therein. As you can see here, the Hope Show could only manage a pathetic specimen – better get your magnifying glass ready for this.

No self-respecting Shapinsay resident..... etc etc

But the most pleasure, I think, is to be had from the children’s sections. They have the best categories, the funniest entries, and the most imagination. Here is a small selection!

I never eat anything with a face, you know

Excellent decoration AND searing political satire about the council's verge-cutting policy!

Spider and baby

You want a muckspreader made out of a shampoo bottle? Certainly Madam.

A gold star to anyone who can spot the mistake.....

I am inspired to attempt an entry next year. Eggs? Rhubarb chutney? Wild flowers in a cream jug? Four squares of tablet? Bonniest courgette? You’ll just have to wait and see!

Wiz zees sweeties you are spoileeng us....

Last week saw the culmination of the Orkney farming season, with the annual spectacle of brand new John Deeres, old Orcadians in mix-n-match outfits of boiler suits, tweed jackets, and seldom-worn ties, teenagers screaming on gravity-defying rides, and fancy poultry. Show Week!

Dragon's Aged P seeks the wine tent

There are several agricultural shows in Orkney. The first of them, traditionally, is the Sanday Show, which I have never attended but which had the distinction in 2007 of being the only one of the islands’ shows to feature livestock. The following day saw a UK-wide ban on the movement of cattle, sheep and goats due to Foot and Mouth disease, thus rendering all subsequent shows that year rather depleted (giving the pet section a hitherto unheard of level of coverage by the local media). I should add at this point that as before, there were no actual cases of F-and-M in Orkney – one of the many benefits of being an island community – but of course the farms here were subject to the same stringent regulations. At least to begin with. At the stock-less County Show that year the awards were presented by the President of the NFSU, who then announced that the government was allowing free movement of animals within Orkney as from the next day. Phew. Cheers and trebles all round!

There is the East Mainland Show, the South Ronaldsay and Burray Show (AKA the ‘Hope Show), the West Mainland Show (AKA the Dounby Show), which is always held on the Thursday, and the biggest of them all, the County Show, held in Kirkwall’s Bignold Park on the Saturday.

The shows are well attended by a wide cross section of Orkney society. There are proper farmers, who take a huge pride in showing the best of their animals. The beasts are preened and primped with sprays, brushes and hair dryers until their coats are glossy or fluffy accordingly. I saw one farmer stop just as he was leading his heifer into the ring. She was calmly pushing out a cowpat, and he was frantically pulling up tufts of grass and attempting to wipe her backside!

Do you usually have your parting on the left?

I have seen peedie boys leading animals into the ring – giving the legs a good shove to get the animal to stand better. These young lads will be dressed in an identical boiler suit to their fathers, but several sizes smaller. The judges are looking for a number of different features – and the resulting pearls of wisdom are treasures to be stored for years to come. We know what the judges say, because they are sometimes interviewed by the local media – most notably by the peerless Radio Orkney. Rain or shine, it seems to be part of their BBC public service remit that these intrepid souls don wellies and attempt to find new words to ask old questions, and to coax more than a monosyllable from the farmers themselves.

Showing a bit of character

‘Why is she a prize-winning coo?’

‘She’s got a good top line/She stands well on her legs/She’s got a fine back end/She just caught the eye’ (delete as appropriate).

My all-time favourite was the judge of a sheep section who was asked what made a particular yow so special. ‘Well,’ he uttered, deadly serious, ‘the sheep speaks for herself’.

One year, Radio Orkney broadcast a brilliantly edited compilation of all the comments. It made my week.

I was very taken at the Hope show with a pen of beautifully coloured sheep - black faces, droopy ears, and coffee coloured fleece. I wondered aloud to my sheep-breeder friend about this special kind of Suffolks, only to be told that they were DYED. What? I cried. Dyed? Apparently, they are temporarily dyed a darker/lighter colour to show off the finer points of the sheep, to contrast with the face, to highlight a fat rump etc. Every farmer, I was informed, has a special secret recipe for dyeing, usually involving gravy browning, which seems to me a rather cruel way of giving the sheep a foretaste of things to come, as it were.

Meet my pal

As well as sheep and cattle, there are prizes for goats (I would dearly love to keep goats – that’s a project for future years, I think), fancy poultry (one little hen had even laid an egg in her show pen! Good God, if she can produce under such conditions, she is surely a champion layer) and heavy horses (including an utterly adorable Clydesdale foal). There are also hundreds of trophies available for pony/horse trotting/jumping/dressage/yawn/sorry, drifted off there for a moment.

Something for the kids

The bigger shows, such as the Dounby and County Shows have fairgrounds, where young Orcadians can learn how to get rat-*rsed on cider and then throw up on their friends. In years to come they will grow up to climb on new combine harvesters, get rat-*rsed on cider and throw up on their friends: thus traditions continue through the generations. The big shows also have many more stalls, selling anything from inflatable spidermen to steak sandwiches, alongside tables fund-raising on behalf of Cats Protection, the RNLI and Orkney Archaeological Society.

The shows are an excellent opportunity for socializing, meeting old pals, leaning against metal pens and chewing the metaphorical fat.

You lookin' at my yow?

This year, it was reckoned that nearly 10,000 people attended the County Show – that’s half the population of Orkney. I know that some of those 10,000 will not be Orkney residents, but even so, it’s still an impressive figure. Aided, it has to be said, by glorious weather – sunny but with a nice cooling breeze so the animals did not get too hot.

Neigh, neigh and thrice neigh

I love looking at the animals, watching the smartly-dressed judges awarding rosettes (which will often, within the month, be displayed at whichever butcher bought the animal), and smiling at little boys on huge gleaming tractors. In times gone by it may have been the only opportunity that farmers and their families had for a proper day out, with treats, crowds and a dance to finish. In my limited capacity as volunteer making glittery bees in the morning and talking about compost in the afternoon, I felt part of island life.

That's the last time I let you use the hairdryer

However. Much as I enjoy the agricultural side of the shows……..the true glory, the jaw-dropping wonders, the inspirational pinnacles of rural achievement are, I believe, to be found in the HORTICULTURAL shows which run alongside the coo stuff in a local school, church hall or community centre. So good they are, that I shall dedicate a separate blog to them! Watch this space!

Tags: agricultural, livestock, Orkney, shows, St Margaret's Hope