Some of you have been loving the Royal Smithfield Show remembered stories dredged up from The Raider s dark and distant past. The NFU s Christine Cuthbertson recalled the first time she went down to the show at a student. It was with a lecturer and fellow students at SAC Auchincruive, circa 1993 – and talk about country comes to town! she said. I was perplexed when we went up the escalator in Earl’s Court to come into view with the all the cattle and naively thought that the cattle had taken the escalator up to their stalls as well – much to the hilarity of my student pals!
Rude politicians We asked for recollections of the Royal Smithfield Show from the London years and we ve not been disappointed. Andrew Gilmour, who was on the show board for a few years and chairman for two years in the 1990s, recalled when The Queen Mother, in her capacity as show president, came to Earls Court every year. She was always the host at the show lunch and various eminent agriculturalists and politicians were asked to the lunch. Andrew said of one visitor: On his arrival, I was asked by the then Scottish Agriculture Minister, John Sewell – this was before devolution – what time the lunch would finish. I said that I didn’t know, but that it would be when Her Majesty decides to leave.