Returning To My Own Pet Subject...

JOHN GRUNDY has been judging one of the classes at Slaley Show - a responsibility he approached with not a little trepidation.

THERE are two or three things you need to know about me before you read this article. The first is that I am essentially a townie.

This sometimes comes as a surprise to those who watch me or read me banging on about the beauties of the countryside, but I have lived all my life in town and love nothing better than a gentle stroll around the boulevards. I’m fond of the countryside, of course, but always pleased to getback to the comforting safety of the city.

The second thing you need to know is that once, in the dim and distant past when I was fortunately too young to be shamed by the knowledge, I was apparently judged unworthy of mention in a bonny baby competition at a country fair near Carlisle. My mother, blinded by love as she was, was mortified.

Thirdly, I have never owned a pet. As a child I never wanted one and as a cruel parent I ignored the desperate pleas of my children. Only once did we as a family succumb to the demands of animal ownership when we won a goldfish at the Hoppings on Newcastle Town Moor. Sadly we spilt it on the way home and,despite the best that medical science could offer, the poor creature never recovered.

Fourthly, and finally, I watch Midsomer Murders on TV in a spirit of some derision. Week after week, inlandscapes of unsulliedEnglish purity, beautiful villages put on brilliantly elaborate village fetes, only for the local cad to be shot in the heart on the archery course. I love it all, but in my modern sophisticated urban way I deride it as pure fantasy (except the archery of course; violent death is always present in modernBritain if we are to believe the news-papers). But as for the rest, the rural idyll of the fair . . . “no way, quite unconvincing” has been my response.

So, with all that sadness and cynicism behind me, imagine the confusion of mind that greeted my invitation to be the judge of the children’s pet competition at Slaley Show on August 8, 2009. Along with the invitation came a copy of the schedule for the show which included a list of the rules, number seven of which states: “Competent judges shall be appointed by the Committee prior to the day of the show”.

“Competent judges . . . ?” At another rural event in Northumberland a year or two ago I was asked to judge a hay bale competition, so I have become relatively blasé about declaring competency - but on that occasion I was being assisted by (or clinging blindly onto the coat tails of) genuinely competent judges. Anyway, hay bales don’t bite and neither - on the whole - do their disappointed owners. On this occasion, what wrath could fall on the head of one so palpably incompetent? I said yes though, because I am very bad at saying no, and duly turned up to perform my duties at the 150th Slaley Show. The 150th - did you notice that? It is an impressively large number, don’t you think?

Northumberland has a long and noble history of innovation in rural matters. In the 18th century the Northumbrian system of agriculture was widely touted as a model for the rest of the country to follow and as early as 1803 the Sitwell family at Barmoor Castle had begun the tradition of agricultural shows by holding a fat pig show. Villages and districts throughout the county have long held their own shows - at Bellingham, Thropton, Alwinton, Tynedale - but even given that background, 150 years is a long and proud record for any village to hold.

Do you know Slaley? It isn’t as absurdly pretty as the places they seek out for Midsomer Murders but it’s a nice village of stone cottages and houses strung along a mile of ridge to the south of the Tyne Valley. Its situation is superb. The ridge gives access to splendid views in both directions and its elevation (it’s over 700 feet up) means that those views are extensive.

Simonside, 30 miles to the north, is clearly visible and all the beauty in between is laid out at your feet, provided that the weather allows. These 700feet of elevation and a ridge presumably mean that in the course of a year, or even in the course of a week (or a day, or an afternoon) Slaley gets its fair share of weather,and my researches have revealed that there have been years in the last 150 when the Slaley Show has been affected by that excess of weather.

But not on August 8, 2009. This year August 8 was a glorious day. It was warm and gentle, though judges with a shortage of hair (and there may have been one)felt the need of protective headgear. What breeze there was (and who could want the Northumbrian hills to be without a breeze?) was the sort that animates but doesn’t ruffle. The grass was dry, the parking a well-organised dream, the air a pleasing mix of sheep, hay and grilled sausages.

We arrived, therefore, in high spirits. I say “we” because theGrundy family, ever alert to the possibility of a good laugh, wanted to watch me judging.

I need to make it clear,before I go any further, that the show was a dream. The scale was extraordinary and the range of things to do and to see beyond the wildest imagination of the writers of Midsomer Murders. It was organised, varied, entertain-ing, beautiful and utterly touching. You might thinkI’m going over the top there,but I’m not. I’m limbo dancing through my description inan attempt to show some self-control.

Everything was beautiful and a dream of England atits best. The sheep were not fluffy but solid and muscular. The poultry, from the true bantam classes to the soft feather bantams, the partridges and the wheaten females were all exquisitely groomed. The onions... I can’t bring myself to look for words to describe the onions... Oh, OK then — they were big.

The flowers (and I speak with the practised eye of one who as a nine-year-old won a prize at the Carlisle Flower Festival with my carefully nurtured bowl of Bismarck hyacinths) were glorious. The alpacas were more charming than any animal had a right to be. There were rural crafts and finest farm produce, with ice cream to die for — or indeed of. Dogs... beautiful dogs wherever you looked. Some of them raced in the terrier races, to tumultuous applause I might add. Others just looked splendid and cared for.

The horsey bits were hugely entertaining too. There wereabout four million different classes but my favourite was the nursery - stakes lead rein only, and that was not really because of the children or their lovely ponies, nice as they were, but because of the mums or sisters or assorted nice girls who charged around the course, swooping round corners and leaping over the jumps with the rider and pony behind them. It was so nice; you would have wept.

And what of my own ordeal? I was lucky in a sense because all the entrants were dogs. How I would have fared if I had had to compare tarantulas with armadillos I don’t know, but in the event it was just dog against dog. But even there I failed; I couldn’t do it.My role required me to offer ordered rosettes for numbers one to six and condemn the rest to the ignominy of history, but I couldn’t do it.

A fourth place rosette for a deserving basset hound.

I managed a first prize to a sort of hairy dog which smiled at me. Second went to a whippety thing which was a really pretty colour. Third prize fell to a silky spaniel because I knew my daughter would knife me if its beauty was not recognised,and fourth went to a basset hound because... well, they deserve some-thing in return for put-ting up with a body like that.

But after that I could go no further. The other dogs were all beautiful and obviously loved so they all had to get rosettes. I believe there were teams of rural ladies furiously making extras out the back — or may-be not. Anyway, I seemed to get away with it and I would do it again. I would judge anything in fact, even the bonny babies, as long as it’s clear that the best-looking baby won’t even get an honourable mention.