Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2017 | Page 77

Country life
MARROWS, BEANS & BUNS
By Sam Biles, Managing Director of country Estate Agents Biles and co
Sam Biles takes a seasonal look at the
traditional village show.
So, the village show season is upon us. With entry fees
in the pennies and prize money not much higher,
some might question the effort involved and wonder
what all the fuss is about.
However, the British village show is as much a part
of country life as are tractors and bumble bees. Quirky
quests for the longest runner bean, the heaviest
marrow or the funniest-shaped vegetable are amongst
the categories that encourage fierce competition year
on year - often among the same entrants. Secret feed
mixes are jealously guarded and it is not unheard-
of for an overnight guard to be mounted on a prize
specimen reaching its peak to avoid dastardly acts of
sabotage.
The arrangement of the closely-matched specimens
– some on a bed of sand, others neatly-trimmed and
tied in raffia - and the well-laid-out trays of neatly-
scrubbed, mixed vegetables, may seem to be a little
artificial, but these will have been clearly set out in the
rules and woe-betide anyone who commits a breach!
Whilst the fruit and veg classes undoubtedly have
their own kind of drama, it is the baking classes that
perhaps see the greatest competition.
It is all too-easy to be intimidated by old Percy’s
record of 10 consecutive wins with his gargantuan
marrows (rumoured to be due to his feeding them a
mix of ground-up rabbit bones and boiled cabbages
watered on between the hours of midnight and 1.00
a.m. each night, playing them a recording of Terry
Wogan’s ‘Floral Dance’). Old Percy may indeed be
unassailable - but the cakes are a different matter. The
recipes are clearly proscribed in the entry forms so in
theory, the playing field is level. A village newcomer,
who is a fan of Bake Off and knows her fan oven
inside out, should have as much chance of lifting
the Archibald-Smythe Perpetual Challenge Cup as
Mrs Dawkins who has entered for 50 years and who
remembers helping her mother to bake the scones for
the VE day party in the same coal-fired Aga she still
uses today.
Our village show has a cake class that is open to
male bakers only. Having lifted the prize on my first
attempt (with a nicely-moist fruit cake with golden top
and even fruit-distribution) I have never managed to
succeed again – in fact all four males in our household
entered last year (lemon-drizzle) and not one was
placed, something we aim to put right this year!
Countryside Tip
If you find a fledgling bird
on the ground do not
automatically pick it up. It
may have fallen from its
nest and the parents may
be fully-aware and be
feeding it on the ground.
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