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The Royal Highland Show
The Royal Highland show at Inglistone has grown a bit since I last visited it in he 1970s, but does size mean quality for Joe Punter?
The Royal Highland Show at Inglistons has been a highlight of the farming social calendar for generations and attracts thousands of ordinary non farming folk for a fun day out for the family. Wandering around the massive show site with acres upon acres of exhibition tents and displays of farming hardware I wondered if there would be anything of interest to me to justify the £20 ticket and £5 parking charge. Judging by the ruddy complexions of some of the people and the many groups of middle aged men nodding and saying aye, aye, aye and fitlike I guessed that the Aberdeen farmers were having a ball not to mention farmers from everywhere else, the farming equipment exhibition must have been a boys toys dream come true with caterpillar tracked tractors on show that were so big all they needed was a gun mount to transform them into battle tanks.
The
livestock arena was buzzing as ever but after a torrential down pour the
beasties were not showing their best, well who does after a dam good drenching?
I toddled and began to wonder where the fun part of the show would be for the
non farmer types like myself. The auctioneers hospitality, wholesale livestock
merchants and animal feed merchant tent were of no interest to me and probably a
large proportion of the people wandering around the show. The music tent by the
clock was to be avoided as a duo warbled some indescribable opera aria so I
trotted by quickly heading for an area I was led to believe was more 'outdoorsy'
and at last I found some activity that was a bit more to my liking.
The falconry show was a real draw as these magnificent birds showed off to an enraptured crowd. The birds were off course stunning and some people got quite a surprise to find a raptor landing squarely on top of their heads, no respecters of human dignity for they are masters of the air. Later there was a display of dogs, labrador retrievers, springer and cocker spaniels which went down well and gave a few handy training hints to would be dog owners. A hot air balloon made an appearance at one point but being adjacent to Edinburgh airport I guess there were some safety issues about it actually flying anywhere and it manage little more than a 'low Earth orbit' being tethered to about twenty feet.
Moving on I stopped by the Scottish Countryside
Alliance exhibition and picked up some information about angling initiatives of
which there are a
few being organised by the Scottish Countryside Alliance Educational Trust
(SCAET) based at Ingliston. The Scottish National Angling Programme has an
ambitious objective of attracting 50,000 new anglers over the next 10 years and
aims to do this by supporting angling organisations in Scotland to develop
coaching programmes for newcomers to the sport. The Programme has set up a
Scottish Angling Leaders Award scheme designed to 'develop a raft of volunteers
to the sport of angling in Scotland'. the aim is to set up and deliver an
angling Foundation Course where participants will learn how to encourage young
people to take up fishing introducing them to the sport in a safe way where they
can enjoy the sport and learn to view the environment in a responsible manner.
While the Angling Leader award is not a coaching qualification it is designed to
give the volunteers the protection and confidence they need to work with
children. The first course was run on the 6th of May this year in association
with the Spey Angling Association. If you are interested in volunteering email
Ian Robertson at
ian@sceat.org.uk or call 077 333 60621. The course is
aimed at club volunteers, teachers, social workers or anyone interested in
nurturing angling among young people.
In addition to the Angling Leaders Award an other
initiative was launched this year 'The Castaways' which is an online club 'run
by young people for young people'. Castaways held it inaugural event at
Kingennie Fishery with the help of TV angler Paul Young. To visit the web site
log on to
www.thecastaways.org.uk
a very attractive and well designed
site that included input on the construction from pupils at Forfar Academy
Moving on I found another event that made me
swoon. I hate heights and the pole
climbing event made me dizzy just looking
up to the top of the 90 foot Douglas Fir pole which people intended to
shinny up! I just had to stay and watch, the last time I saw something scoot up
a tree that fast it was red, cute and had a big bushy tale and ate acorns. The
winner reached the top in 11.4 seconds, he is the
world chapm though. Just to prove that you are never too young to get started on
a sport one competitor took up poll climbing 7 years ago at 67. He is now, if I
did my sums right, 75 and he did his climb in just over 18 seconds!! Hell. I
can't climb the stairs to go to bed in that time.
Finally I found something to do with fishing. Ian Mouter put on a show for the audience that was both skilful and entertaining, did you really mean to lay the line dead centre on that chaps hat Ian? A fine shot. In 40 minutes or so Ian showed budding fly anglers that casting a fly ain't that tough, or at least he made it look easy with a dazzling display of rolls and loops accompanied with hints and advice on how to make a cast without breaking sweat.
My verdict on the day. Aside from the few areas of interest to me I didn't rate the show as value for money. The organisers could do with putting more effort into providing entertainment at the event, my feeling was it was just a posh Ingleston market with lots of farming machinery.
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