Good weather and record crowds made this year’s Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show, the annual celebration of agriculture, the countryside and rural life, held at the Turnpike Showground, near Motcombe, a great success.
One of the many highlights of the show was a display by the Lightning Bolts Army Parachute Display Team. Eight members of the team took off from Netheravon Airfield on Salisbury Plain before jumping 3,500 feet into the main ring, including one team member with a giant Union flag.
North Dorset Beekeepers provided a window on the world of bees in the new Bees & Honey marquee, with an observation hive, beeswax making and honey tasting, and much more.
Sheep shearing, which is always popular, returned with a whole Wool Village. There was a fantastic turnout in the sheep classes with over 500 sheep of many breeds shown. The Turnpike ring, this year sponsored by the NBVM, offered entertainment for all ages, including ferret and terrier racing, and gun dogs and falconry displays.
The IMPs Motorcycle Display Team, whose youngest member is just five years old, put on a spectacular show in the main ring.
Event organiser James Cox said he was pleased that after more than 15 years the Grand Parade of Livestock returned to the main ring.
The agricultural stands were a highlight of the show, and he was delighted by visitors’ reaction to the show and the attendance.
He added: “We don’t know the exact number yet, but it was more than 20,000 people!”
The show, put on with the help of more than 300 volunteers, has been running for over 160 years and planning for next year’s event, being held on Wednesday, 16 August, is under way.
In the last 12 months the show has raised £10,000 for local clubs, charities and an agricultural student support fund.

The Lightning Bolts Army Parachute Display Tram arrive at the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show in style!

Remembering heroes

Forces veterans and volunteers manned The Not Forgotten Association stand at the Show to raise awareness of the charity
and funds.
Marta Cunningham founded the organisation after visiting a War Office Hospital in Chelsea a year after the end of the Great War and finding hundreds of men languishing in wards.
The charity has supported wounded service personnel and disabled veterans since 1920, its team of 10 staff now helping more than 10,000 individuals.
Its programme includes challenge and activity breaks such as adaptive skiing, trekking and alpine canoeing; outings and visits to prestigious sporting events such as Wimbledon; holiday grants; the provision of televisions and television licences for those confined to their homes; and computers for the digitally isolated.
thenotforgotten.org

On the stand (from left) are Pete Pugsley-Davies (RAF bomb disposal), Eddie Howe (Royal Navy Falklands War veteran), volunteer Ross Griggs, volunteer Diane Mathiot and Terri Pugsley-Davies (WRAF medic)

Snapshot of history…

Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show visitor Tom Davies brought along this photograph taken at the show nearly three decades ago.
Tom, from Gillingham, is pictured proudly holding aloft an award for ‘endeavour’ at what was then the Shaftesbury show in 1993.
The horse in the picture is Downlands Cancara, an English graded Trakehner stallion famous for representing Lloyds Bank as the Black Horse in its long-running series of television adverts.
Tom, who was 24 at the time the photo was taken, had a stroke aged eight months old which left him unable to use the right side of his body.
He started riding at the age of nine with Riding for the Disabled and still rides once a week near Wincanton.

Tom Davies with the Lloyds Bank black horse at the Shaftesbury show in 1993.

Tom Davies now, at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show 2022.

Fastest woodsman in the west

Veteran woodsman Ernie Steel, from Farnham, once dubbed ‘the fastest woodsman in the west’ for his success in competitions, demonstrated his skills at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show.
Ernie, 85, was born in 1936 when his father was caretaker at Larmer Tree Gardens but moved to Farnham in 1940 to a home with a dirt floor and no electricity, with a Tilley Lamp or candle used for light.
Ernie started school in the village at the age of five and can remember his father, who was head woodsman, putting him on his bike to go into the woods to help him.
Ernie was making spars for thatching aged about ten and at 12 could split 1,000 spars in four hours for his father to put points on them. “Nowadays, children get pocket money, but not me – not even a thank you,” Ernie said.
He left school at 15 and worked with his father for three years to learn how to make hurdles. “My pay was £1 and 1 shilling for a seven-day week and no holidays then,” he added.
He was called up for National Service but failed the medical and went back to the woods for a short time before working as a mechanic for a brief period and then returning to the woods.
Hurdle making has been practised for hundreds of years, not only for stock control of sheep and cattle, but for building houses – many made of wattle- and daub-covered hurdles are still standing.

Woodsman Ernie Steel at the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show

Brilliant bees

The new Bees and Honey Marquee at the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show was a hive of activity, attracting hundreds of visitors throughout the day.
Visitors to the marquee, run by North Dorset Beekeepers Association (based at Shillingstone), had the chance to see baby bees hatching in an observation hive, make candles out of beeswax, taste honey to see if they could distinguish between the genuine article and fake products, and learn more about bees.
Plans for a new North Dorset Honey Bee Centre at Holloway Farm in Shillingstone, which will cost £150,000 to £200,000 – met through fundraising and grant aid – were also on show.
It will provide a learning and community centre for training new beekeepers, developing skills, and education about the role of the honey bee in food production and the wider environment for visiting schools and other groups.
The centre has received planning permission and Dorset Council has granted a 50-year lease for half an acre of land at the farm. Fundraising for the first stage of building for services and groundwork is up and running with funding for about a third of the cost already in place. It is hoped the centre will open in 2025.
Beekeepers at the show were able to highlight the key part honey bees play in food production and food security – and that the bee population has been in long-term decline since the 1970s.
The north Dorset group trains 25 beginners a year and aims to improve the skills of its 150 members.
Novices may be wary of getting stung, but James Nalty, who became a beekeeper after his children paid for him to go on a course as a present, said: “By the time we get to the end of the course, participants are in it up to their arms – you’re not a beekeeper until you’ve had your first sting!”
James is delighted about the increase in interest in beekeeping. “It reflects positivity in the natural world and bees in particular.”
A number of ways are available to support the honey bee centre project, including visiting www.justgiving.com/northdorsetbeekeepers Business sponsorships are also on offer and individuals can become patrons of the planned centre.
For more info go to www.northdorsetbeekeepers.org.uk or find the group on Facebook – NDBKA.

North Dorset Beekeepers Association membership secretary James Nalty and committee member Sue Billington, in the Bees and Honey Marquee

Some Photos from the Super Show…