Land Rover World Show, Eastnor Castle 22-23rd July

Over the past few years the LRW Show has not enjoyed a particularly good reputation, which may explain the unexceptional Club turnout (as regards numbers) for this year's event. The new venue, Eastnor Castle, provides a first-class backdrop for the event, with scenic drives in and the opportunity for impressive views once you have arrived. This all helped to generate a vastly improved show and, again, EMLRA consistently pulled a larger crowd than other, bigger, stands. This may have been due to the range of vehicles on display, or the lakeside location obtained by Peter Barratt, or it may be the netting - once they're in, the public can't find the way out again and therefore have no way of escaping Mark Buddle armed with the Army Benevolent Fund collection buckets. See? It's all planned.

Somewhere under that lot there's a whole herd of them - a Lightweight, 110, 101EW, sock trailer, dining shelter and a fair portion of the Committee. Oh for a 105mm light gun...

The arena events were clearly being made up as time went on. The programme stated that there would be two parades a day, featuring all clubs with a maximum of two vehicles per club. Fortunately we ignored all that and presented a line-up comprising Peter Barratt with a half-hour speech on EMLRA and Electronic Warfare 101s, Mark Buddle in Balkans Policeman mode with his 110, Mike Allmey and his you-must-have-more-than-one 101 Ambulance and John Butcher with his 101 Radio Body and tales of simultaneous Lightweight and Discovery ownership.

A man of many parts:
Peter Barratt reveals he has more than one.

"I swapped it":
Mark Buddle reveals how to get one.

No wonder they wouldn't let us back in on the Sunday - it must have been professional jealousy. But we must also have had some effect on those watching - people started to turn up at the stand offering hard cash in exchange for membership application forms. Of course Peter Barratt tried to resist such entreaties... for about as long as it takes to mentally form the phrase "Yes of course you can join".

Under the Spreading Cam Net Tree: Attempting to hide while having breakfast.
Our lakeside display had to be shared with battalions of ducks and the occasional pigeon.
Mozzies and over-inquisitive members of the public could be dealt with in the same way -
a rolled-up newspaper.

But it wasn't all Land Rovers - some exhibits where even more noisy and smelly.
(The traction engines, on the other hand, were undeniably pleasant.)