The Last Royal Show
9 July 2009

As they attend the last ever Royal Show (7-10 July), Ambridge residents are mourning the loss of this regular fixture in their annual calendar.

Rosemary Watts and Sarah Morrison record effects at the 2009 Royal Show

The "Royal", a mixed agricultural show with a large food and consumer element, moved to a regular home at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire in 1963. This put it very much in Archers territory. Indeed, in 1991, David noted that once out of the car park it took just 34 minutes to drive home to Brookfield.

But after 170 years the Royal's demise has been forced by several unrelated factors.

The number of farmers in Britain has dropped from 130,000-140,000 in the 1980s to 50,000-60,000 now. Fewer farmers means fewer attendees, fewer businesses servicing them, and hence fewer exhibitors.

As agriculture has become more specialised, farmers have tended towards more targeted shows, such as the Dairy Event or the Cereals Event.

They have been prevented or restricted from showing their animals at the Royal by animal diseases, including foot-and-mouth in 2001.

2007 brought torrential rain and flooding, which forced the show to close a day early

And because of bluetongue last year, instead of the expected 1,200 head of cattle and 1,600 sheep on show, there were just 200 cattle and 400 sheep. The organizers - the Royal Agricultural Society of England (Rase) - made a loss of around £200,000.

The Archers at the Royal

The first mention of the Royal Show in The Archers archives dates from 1953. It was held at Blackpool that year. Young Phil's boss George Fairbrother came back with the pedigree breeding bug. Interestingly, he was thinking of Hereford cattle, which now graze Brookfield's pastures.

Ambridge farmers and villagers attended the show regularly over the years. In 1979, Jennifer was keeping rare breed Jacob's sheep and entered a pair of shearling ewes (shearlings are one year old sheep from which a crop a wool has been taken).

The owners of the Berrow Estate have also been drawn to the show. In 1991, Phil, Jill David and Ruth bumped into Cameron Fraser in the country sports area, while his tenants Pat and Tony sampled the organic ice-cream. And in 1995, Guy and Simon Pemberton failed to get on while Shula tried to play peacemaker.

On location

The episode transmitted on 8 July 1998 was been recorded on location at the Royal. The deceased John Archer had booked a stand to promote his pork. Rather than cancel it, his brother Tommy (as he was then known) insisted that he would run the stall with Hayley's help. The rest is history. Elsewhere in the showground, Neil was interviewed and offered a sales job by an animal health products company. But to Susan's dismay he turned it down.

As she has got older, Pip has been keen to attend, particularly in 2003 when Brookfield was showing Britney, a Hereford heifer. Britney didn't win anything, but at least Pip had a day off school. And in 2008 she helped at the Young Farmers marquee.

Riding the wave of interest for localised produce, several of our farmers have taken advantage of the Borsetshire Fine Foods stall in recent years. Tom - now with Brenda - has been Gourmet Grilling, Brookfield have promoted their Hereford beef, Helen Borsetshire Blue cheese and Adam the Home Farm strawberries.

Busy bees

All that is fictional, of course, but this year fiction met reality. While Phil discussed Hereford cattle with anyone who would listen, Jill reported that she had given the (no doubt nonplussed) producers responsible for the Farming Today bees the benefit of her experience.

The Archers and beekeeping

Farming Today bees blog

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