The ‘Showman’ Retires

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 10

The ‘Showman’ Retires

Members of agricultural and pastoral associations round the South Island will be interested to know that Mr L. C. (Len) Hobbs retired from the Department of Agriculture in October.

Mr Hobbs was the man who took the department’s exhibit round South Island shows between 1948 and last year when the department withdrew its exhibit partly on account of economic conditions and partly because it had in mind creating a new type of exhibit with a new image. His last official appearance at a show was at the Dunedin winter show last year.

Mr Hobbs is a man with shows in his blood. He says that when he reads about shows in “The Press” these days it makes him feel that he would very much like to have been there. Between 1948 and last year he attended an average of 15 shows a year. The Christchurch, Invercargill and Dunedin (winter) shows were attended every year, and where there was a request for attendance an endeavour was made to attend even the smallest show once in three years.

Requiring a 72ft by 42ft (space for its marquee, the | department, with a similar 'exhibit in the North Island [also, was the biggest show (exhibitor in the country, i Mr Hobbs was saddened j when the department decided to even temporarily suspend I its show exhibit. Because it [catered for the home gardener, the sheep and wool man ;and the cereal farmer, he felt it was a very retrograde step. [Having been in business for many years himself, he thought that when things were difficult it was the time to advertise. This was the only show window that the department had and he felt that at that time the department should have been supporting the associations. Mr Hobbs has many anecdotes of his show days. He recalled recently the story of a woman showing her preschool son the observation bee-hive at the Winchester show. The mother drew her son’s attention to the queen marked with a white spot. “Where is the Duke of Edinburgh,” remarked the youngster.

Mr Hobbs also tells the story of the notice he placed alongside complimentary copies of the “Journal of Agriculture”—it read, “Please

take one.” Some pranksters moved it to a pile of apples in the horticulture display and these duly disappeared. Likewise it was subsequently found that a pile of eggs had also disappeared. When the prank came to Mr Hobbs’s notice the sign had been moved alongside some cartons of honey but a start had not been made to remove them.

In his capacity as department showmen, Mr Hobbs has had to conduct GovernorsGeneral, Prime Ministers and Ministers of Agriculture over the exhibit. He makes special mention of the present Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) who ranks among the few members of Parliament who have lent him a hand to pack his truck.

Mr Hobbs takes pleasure in : the fact that, for years he travelled around the country over long distances with a heavily laden truck without a serious mishap. One of his busiest weeks was when he had the exhibit at Tuatapere one Saturday and moved it to Takaka, a long haul of 800 miles with a seven-ton truck, for the next Saturday. Wind has been one of the worries of the department’s showman with his big marquee. He recalls that the marquee went into orbit ahead of the Russian spacemen when it was blown over in a gale at Kaikoura a few years ago when 38 men on

the ropes could not hold it. Some 50 concrete poles were also broken by the gale in the district. On the occasion that the Eyrewell Forest was ravaged by winds the marquee was up for the Hawarden show and while it remained erect it was badly damaged and all of the exhibits were upset. Once at Tuatapere, the Waiau river rose in flood, dropping two corner . poles, and Mr Hobbs was mentally compiling a letter to the department about how the tent had been swept away when the river suddenly started to recede. The department did not normally allow its exhibit to be judged for the best commercial exhibit on the ground but the exhibit did win this award on one occasion at the Nelson show. The Christchurch-born Mr Hobbs had his first experience of “showing” when, as a member of the staff of the National Cash Register Company, he was on the company’s stand at the Dunedin and South Seas Exhibition in 1925-26. His first job out of Christchurch Technical College was in a warehouse, later he worked as a car salesman and then in leather goods. After he married in 1930 he went to Waimate and between 1931 and 1937 he was a casual employee with the Department of Agriculture

when Mr W. C. Stafford and the late Mr C. C. Leitch were the only other members of the fields division of the department between the Rangitata and Waitaki Rivers. Between 1937 and 1948 he was storekeeping at Hororata and in the latter year Mr Leitch asked him if he would like to come back to the department to look after its show exhibit. A well-known personality in the department, Mr Hobbs was gratified on his retirement to receive messages from fellow workers in the department from Warkworth to Invercargill.