by Debbie Young
“A busy afternoon, then?”
“Not just an afternoon. It goes into the evening too, because the beer tent remains open till it’s been drunk dry. Which is one reason why the auction of all the goods at the end of the night makes so much profit. And you’ll need to be up at the crack of dawn to get your entries into the judging tent before the ten o’clock bell. Make sure you save your pennies for the Show, Sophie, because it’s a really good day out. People come from miles around to see it, and everyone in the village takes part. What will you enter in the show? You’ve got to enter something. Are you any good at baking cakes? Preserves? Chutneys? Wines?”
I felt inadequate. “No, not at all. To recognise my level of skill in the kitchen, they’d have to have a category for toast.”
“How about the best salad on a plate? You don’t have to grow it or cook it, of course. Just make a pretty arrangement. Or you can enter eggs or honey if you keep chickens or bees, though technically speaking it’s not you who produces them. Joshua, next door to you, has won the best honey in show award for the last three years. Your auntie often took the cup for best photo, with the snaps she captured while she was away in exotic places on her travels. What’s your special talent? I’m sure you must have one.”
She gave my hand an encouraging pat as she pressed the change and the receipt into my palm, clearly no more convinced than I was that I had spectacular skills to display.
“What about writing?” I ventured gingerly. “Is there a prize for writing?”
“Best handwriting for their age, but only for the under-twelves.”
“Not that sort of writing. Creative writing.”
“I tell you what.” She leaned forward across the counter conspiratorially. “Why don’t you ask the Committee to add a new category for your sort of writing? They reconsider the programme every year, adding new classes to move with the times. They even have prizes for digital photos now. And the new loom band jewellery class was oversubscribed last year. Though I doubt it will be this year.”
She indicated a basket on the corner of the counter. There languished a few dozen packs of loom bands, marked down successively from £1 to 50p to 10p per pack, and still not shifting.
“Brilliant idea, Carol!”
“And a new category might not attract many entries, giving you a better chance of winning a prize. Funny that nobody’s thought of it before, really, what with there being a village writers’ group.”
This was news to me. I felt absurdly disappointed that my aunt and I were not the only writers in the village.
“Was May in it?”
“She gave them the odd pep talk, I think, but none of them were in her league. They’re not proper writers, like her. Most of them haven’t published anything yet. But I bet they’d give it a go. Run the idea past the Show Committee to see what they think. Worst that can happen is that they say no.”
The Show Committee! I’d forgotten all about them. I grabbed the milk cartons that I was meant to be taking urgently for their tea.
“Who exactly is on the Show Committee? Anyone I might know? Anyone who is particularly keen on literature or the clever use of words?”
“Well, there’s Billy,” she said brightly, following me to the door to turn the “Open” sign to “Closed” for her lunch break. I left the shop, the doorbell jangling heavily in the humid afternoon heat, and returned to Hector’s House to tackle the Show Committee with sinking heart. I had the distinct feeling that this might not end well.
10 The Show Committee
I strolled back down the High Street clutching a large carton of milk to my chest to cool me down in the midday heat. In my absence, a strange array of vehicles had congregated outside Hector’s House. This included a mud-spattered off-road tricycle, now very much on the road; a small rusting tractor; two ancient bicycles; and a navy blue Nissan Micra. Pushing open the door, I was struck by the impression that the tearoom was entirely full, even though only five people sat there. Hector made the introductions, as Billy, who possessed one of the bikes, was the only face familiar to me.
I learned that Stanley Harding, a stout middle-aged man in checked flannel shirt and ancient twill trousers, was the third-generation Show Committee Chairman. He had come by tractor, not wanting to lose time getting back to the fields afterwards. Trevor Jenkins, a dusty-looking builder of about forty, had come on the tricycle. He’d off-roaded across the recreation ground from his current building site: an infill home by an old barn at the edge of the village. Bob Blake, the community policeman, had come on the shinier of the bikes, and was still wearing his bicycle clips. Tilly Westman, local nurse and owner of the Micra, was smiling encouragingly at me from under her long, straight mousey fringe. I suspected she was glad of another female presence to offset the testosterone.
She patted an empty seat beside her. “Welcome aboard, Sophie. Hector’s been telling us what a good ideas person you are, and that you are keen to join the Show Committee. We could certainly do with some fresh blood.”
Whose blood were they about to spill?
“I hadn’t been planning to join the Committee—” I began, casting a pleading glance at Hector. He simply nodded and waved his hand towards the chair, indicating that I should sit down. I took comfort from sitting opposite a policeman.
Hector turned away and continued taking books out of a large cardboard carton, scanning their barcodes and putting them on the shelves. He looked as if he was shopping in reverse.
“Don’t get too comfortable till you’ve served up our tea, young miss,” objected Billy, waving in the direction of the cake counter. “Your special tea, by the way.”
When I got up to flick the switch on the kettle, Hector set down his barcode scanner and sidled over to me casually, standing very close. He opened a door concealed beneath the counter and lifted out an unlabelled bottle of an opaque liquid and pressed it into my hand. It looked like off-white emulsion paint.
“You’ll find the special cream for Billy’s jug in here, Sophie.” He lifted out a new bottle. “I dare say the others will sneak a splash too.”
Once the tea was made and the cream was flowing, I quickly discovered the various roles within the Committee. Bob was Entries Secretary, making sure that all entrants submitted their produce for display with the right paperwork filled in. Trevor managed the events, providing the hay bales needed for seating around the edge of the arena and constructing the marquee and beer tent. From the size of his tummy, I suspected he was also its best customer. As well as chairing the Committee, Stan provided the pig for the hog roast and the farm hands to turn the spit and carve the meat. Billy was Prizes Officer, organising the champions’ trophies. Tilly was the Show Secretary, generally providing common sense and order, and managing all the correspondence. She also created the Show Programme, which, as luck would have it, was the main purpose of the day’s meeting. She passed us each a copy of the previous year’s edition: a twelve-page stapled leaflet.
“So today we need to look at ways of boosting the carnival parade, because we get fewer trailer floats each year,” began Stanley. “Plenty of walkers in costume, but not so many people willing to enter floats. I can’t think why.”
I hesitated to intervene so early, but I didn’t want to miss this chance to make my mark. “Maybe there aren’t so many farmers with trailers available as there used to be. Or, indeed, so many farmers.”
A murmur went around the table.
“I’m buggered if she ain’t spot on there,” Billy spluttered, putting his teacup down with such a crash that I surreptitiously looked for cracks in the china. “Three of the farmers who used to tow floats each year had been unfortunately harvested by their maker before last year’s show.”
Trying to suppress a grisly vision of farmers tumbling into their own threshing machines, I needed a long draught of my tea before I could speak again. Then I realised Billy was speaking metaphorically. A translator would come in handy round here, I thought.
“I think w
hat Sophie is suggesting,” said Tilly, kindly, “is that we need to persuade some newcomers to put floats in.”
“You can’t rustle up a trailer if you haven’t got one,” argued Bob. “Besides, most of the new houses don’t have enough parking space to take a trailer, even if people have got a tow bar on their cars.”
“Parking space, my arse,” replied Billy, in the best non-sequitur I’d heard for a while. “They’ve all got bloody four by fours, and if all they need is a trailer, Stan here can find one for them – can’t you, boy? You’ve got plenty of rusting trailers lying about unused in the old barn by your woods.”
Stanley hesitated. “I think I have two, if people are prepared to decorate them and they’re willing to come down to my land to do it. But who would we ask?”
“Playgroup and the WI are all sorted already, and Gardening Club’s using my flatbed truck,” said Trevor.
“There are plenty of organisations in the village,” said Tilly. “But I don’t know how we persuade them to do it. Everyone’s so busy planning their holidays in the run-up to the Show.”
The answer seemed obvious to me. “Tell them it would be a great way to promote their particular clubs. It would help them recruit new members, or promote any events that they’re planning for later in the year.”
“Wendlebury Players,” put in Tilly. “They’ll be doing an autumn show, and it would help sell tickets. They’re always looking for new male members.”
Billy sniggered.
“And new women too, now,” added Trevor, “because so many of them left after the Sound of Music casting fiasco. All the best actresses, anyway.”
“They’re all big bloody show-offs,” said Billy. “A load of middle-aged women happy to flaunt themselves in public. That Linda Absolom is the worst of the lot.”
Hector heckled from behind the shop counter, where he sat bashing away at his computer keyboard. “Not something you normally complain about, Billy.”
“Or we could ask the Wendlebury Writers,” said Tilly. “They’re very creative. Some women might be in both, though. That might be a problem.”
“Some women are in every bloody group in the village,” said Billy. “Old busybodies.”
Stanley knew how to rein him back in. “And you are on how many committees, Billy? Four, is it now? Or five, including the Gardening Club?”
“If you want something done, you know what they say.” Unperturbed, Billy poured himself another cup of tea.
“I’ll minute that we’ll offer Stanley’s two trailers to the Wendlebury Writers and the Wendlebury Players,” said Tilly, scribbling on her shorthand pad. “Who’s that an action point for, then?”
There was an ominous silence, while they all looked at each other, then at me.
“You’re the only one on the Committee who hasn’t got any jobs to do at the moment,” said Billy. “Get a grip, girlie.”
He put his hands together in an illustrative gesture that made me imagine him wringing my neck.
Hector let out a bark of laughter. “Yes, come on, Sophie, get a grip.”
My eyes fixed on Billy’s curled hands, I found myself nodding eagerly as Tilly minuted my acceptance. Stanley ran his finger down to the next point on the agenda.
“Right, now that’s sorted, we need to review all the classes for entries, add new ones in and remove any for which there were not enough entries last year to justify sustaining them.” He opened his copy of the previous year’s show programme and bent it right back at the spine, as if loosening it up for some serious physical action.
After poring over eight pages of entry classes, we all came up for air and a long draught of tea. Billy drained his cup and refilled it, topping it up with a generous tot of cream.
“I don’t think we’ll need a loom band category this year,” suggested the sensible Tilly, tapping the point of her pen against the children’s section. “They were a one-summer wonder. I’m not sure what has taken their place this year. If any child is behind the times and is still making them, they can enter one under the Any Other Handicraft section.”
“Agreed.” Bob struck it from the list with a short, stubby pencil. “And I think everyone’s had enough of the potato wine class, after all the sickness it caused last year. I know I couldn’t face another drop. I’m entering the potatoes from my allotment this year just as potatoes.”
“An imaginative lot, our boys in blue,” murmured Billy.
“I think it’s time to add knitting in three and four ply back in again,” suggested Tilly. “I’ve seen several small children in delicate little cardies in the playpark this summer. I don’t know who’s making them, but they’re definitely hand knits.”
“Any other ideas for new categories?” asked Stan, flicking through the programme again. “Anything else to freshen up the mix? Billy?”
“Whittling, say I. Nothing wrong with a bit of whittling. Or knife-sharpening, now there’s a real art.”
I really didn’t want to see Billy with a sharp knife in his hands, whether for whittling or any other purpose.
I cleared my throat. “Actually, I was wondering about a writing competition. No, not handwriting—” Trevor was stabbing pointedly at the children’s section “—but creative writing, for adults. You know, poems or travelogues or short stories.” They looked dubious. “I’d love to have the chance to enter a short story competition.”
There was a silence, broken by Stan. “Maybe you could endow a trophy in honour of your late aunt?” He held up his programme, open at the list of trophies, each named after a dead person. There was a Henry Snow Giant Parsnip Cup, the Albert Beetle Beetroot Medal, the Shirley Salisbury Woolly Jumper Trophy. (I wasn’t clear whether the latter one was for knitting or for training sheep.) “How about the May Sayers Golden Inkwell?”
“Endow means you pay for it,” Tilly added, to be clear.
“We could award it for best limerick,” piped up Billy, now on his fourth cup of tea. “I wouldn’t mind having a go at that one myself:
“There once was a woman named May
Always up for a roll in the hay—”
Bob wagged an admonishing finger at him. “Now, now, Billy, show a bit of respect for them as has lost her. In any case, it’s not as if May Sayers wrote limericks, is it?”
“She might have done. On her days off.” Billy looked hurt, but then he brightened. “Maybe we could make it that all the limericks have to be about May Sayers, out of respect. Shouldn’t be hard, as her name’s an easy one to rhyme with. As is my own:
“A handsome old farmer named Billy
Was renowned for the size of his—”
“Yes, that’s enough of that, William.”
Stanley tried in vain to silence him, but Billy was apparently on a roll.
“Sophie, now that’s much trickier—”
I was glad when Tilly interrupted him. “Trophy. Sophie and Trophy. So are you happy to pay for the trophy, Sophie?”
“As her next of kin, I suppose it would be down to me. Which is absolutely fine, by the way, if you tell me how to go about ordering one. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Hector left his computer to come and stand behind me. “Actually, Hector’s House would be honoured to fund a trophy in May Sayers’s memory. It would remind people to come into my shop to buy her books. Sophie, what do you think it should be for – poetry, travel writing or a broader topic?”
I was keen to move in the direction of prose, as I’ve never been able to dream up rhymes to save my life. I’ve always believed there’s a poetry gene, like the gene which determines whether or not you’re good at doing foreign accents. I have neither.
“Like the classic school essay, ‘What I Did in My Holidays’, only for grown-ups?” asked Bob, frowning as if trying to rack his brains for something memorable from his own last trip away.
“She was a traveller, not a tourist,” I said gently, not wanting to hurt the policeman’s feelings. It seemed a good idea to stay on the right
side of the law.
“I know! Nature writing!” put in Stanley. “So as not to show prejudice against those as don’t travel anywhere. A nice bit of nature writing about our village pond, perhaps, or the valley down yonder. Or anywhere that takes your fancy, really.”
“Down yonder green valley, where streamlets meander,” sang Bob in a light tenor.
Billy looked impressed. “Very good, our copper. I wouldn’t have put you down for the poetic type.”
Tilly set him straight. “Oh, Billy, Bob didn’t make that up. It’s an old traditional song. Have you never heard of The Ash Grove?”
“That’s the pub up Moreton way, isn’t it?” Billy poured himself another cup of tea. For a moment I had an irresistible urge to try to cram his whole body into the teapot to silence him, like the dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
“Nature writing it is, then,” concluded Stanley. “Not too long a piece, mind, so the judges have time to read them all. Could be a long job if we have too many entries in. How long do you reckon, Sophie?”
I was pleased he regarded me as the writing expert in the room. “How about 250 words? That’s roughly enough to fill one side of A4. And who should judge?”
I wanted to deflect that role away from myself so that I wouldn’t be excluded from entering. Billy lobbed a sugar lump at Hector. His aim was surprisingly sharp.
“Hector, you old bugger, are you up to judging some writing about nature?”
“Now, Billy, ladies present,” said Stanley, chivalrously.
“Oh, all right, then – Hector, you old sod.”
Hector dusted granules of sugar off his shirt. “Can’t be me, anyway. Needs to be someone from beyond the village, as well you know. Why not get one of the Slate Green secondary school teachers? Not Rex or Julia, of course, because although they teach there, they live in the village. But they might invite their head of English to volunteer.”
