Show Has Its Appeal For Every Age

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30289, 15 November 1963, Page 2

Show Has Its Appeal For Every Age

Take candy-floss, pop-corn and children in large quantities, and sift well among sideshows, cattle, farm machinery and holiday-mood adults. Leaven with horse and pony riding events and a dog show, and add homecraft exhibits, trade stands and a shearing contest for variety. Mix all ingredients thoroughly in a large, pleasant, open space on a beautifully warm nor’-west day and the result can only be a perfect show.

It was such a day yesterday at the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s 101st show, and if the fine weather holds, People’s Day, 1963, will be just as good.

To some, “The Show” stands for one special thing or interest It might be pigs or preserves or proud, sleek cows; fine horses perhaps, or farm implements, or flowers. Whatever it might be, year by year there is always a new interest and excitement. Competitors in the many classes are, of course, the backbone of any show. They have a special status, and can record their show careers by the ribbons and trophies they have won—or missed winning through some misadventure equally-well recalled. But spectators too, if they look back over the years, can alsQ mark some milestones that they passed at shows. Some have been coming every year for two decades, or even three or four. Yet they can probably recall the great day when they were first deemed old enough to go to the show by themselves. The whole show was theirs for the price of the few precious shillings in their pocket. Earnest financial calculations were required about mid-afternoon, half way along sideshow alley, to decide whether there was enough money left to see the miniature circus, the head-

less woman, and the wall of death—and to buy a ticket home. Shows at that stage meant the number of different things you could buy to eat, oddities to see in sideshows, the dog show, and ticket for the ferris-wheel —if the money lasted. There were leaflet collecting contests, in which trade standards were raided for no better reason than to see who could collect the biggest pile—and they were free. In Love With Horses Next came the “horse mad” stage, perhaps, and though candy-floss and waffles still were a part of the day, money went for a catalogue and a ticket for the grandstand. A little later came the dawn of fashion consciousness and the fine, hot show day on which you insisted on

wearing—against all the advice and predictions of your parents—your smart new shoes. Not many show days after that, quite suddenly, you were grown up: new dress and hair-style, dark sunglasses and, of course, in your new wisdom, nice but well-tried shoes. There was no candy-floss at this show. You took a superior and rather superficial interest in events, and did your best not to show that you still loved the noise, the colour and the gaiety just as much as ever. Maturity brought a different freedom. You were grown up enough for it not to matter who knew whether you still liked candy-floss and riding on the ferris wheel. Suddenly the show seemed to have more to offer than ever before.

Shows might be a child’s delight, but it is now, with a home of your own, that you can take a full interest in many more aspects of it and can understand the interest taken by other women in the cooking competitions and the knitting and the handwork. Indeed, it is only now that every section of the catalogue really falls into perspective and you fully appreciate the gay, stimulating, rowdy kaleidoscope that is “The Show.”

You still get tired and sunburnt, but you will love it — and you will be back next year.