There'll always be an England

“There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain”.

So sang Vera Lynn (she was a favourite of Dad’s). There’s a lot more to this anthem than these four lines, but I’ve homed in on them because they focus on the rural, which dovetails nicely with my trips last week to the Winslow Country Show and the Bucks County Show. 

Different in scale but twins in most other respects, these annual late-summer events are celebrations of England’s romanticised rural way of life, values and attitudes that forge ahead, bloodied but unbowed. Where muck meets brass. Where only the cows and turnips are judged. Where the police are sociable not socialist. Everyone contributes. Everyone queues nicely. Everyone’s an entrepreneur at heart. Everyone’s a philanthropist. Everyone smiles. No consequences for saying the wrong thing or shaking the wrong hand. A flat-cap attitude and a ferret down your jeans is all you need to join this club.

Even the weather was typical of rural England in late August – sunshine and downpours. Some things do change though: mobility scooters are growing in numbers while walking sticks decline. I didn’t really notice the huge and unwieldy (but necessary) contraptions until I popped into the trade marquees, then it was gridlock. The whole shebang prompted memories of about ten? twelve? years ago when Sis and I took Mum and Dad to the County Show. Dad wasn’t too good on his pins by that time, so we took it in turns to push him round in an old-fashioned wheelchair. Mum was still sprightly, but she suddenly felt unwell and we needed to get her home. She couldn’t get to the carpark, so we turfed Dad out of the wheelchair, plonked Mum in it and away we went.

Back to 2025, and the Bucks MPs made a point of being at the shows and posting a series of self-promoting photos on Facebook. Starmer’s voting fodder, for some reason, avoided being pictured in front of a ‘Stop the Family Farm Tax’ banner. The Tory MP, who married into a farming family and knows his onions, wheat and Herefords, had no such qualms.

Glowering at the nearby, gigantic, solitary wind turbine, dropped in the middle of the low, flat vale, the steel and concrete an affront to science, economics and aesthetics, I said to Hubby, “I love the smell of methane in the morning.”

Which is a clever(?) segue into my next topic: livestock is king. Punters bought chicken pies and cheeses as if Armageddon were round the corner (well, yes). They also got patriotic with their bacon butties and a bottle of ketchup. The beef-burger queues got longer and longer. Saint Piran's Flag proudly advertised Cornish Pasties. Real, dairy high-cholesterol cream nearly ran out. Trade stands constantly restocked their leather goods. The foxhounds drew huge crowds of admirers. The gun tent was popular. The Reform UK stand was well-attended. Prize bulls strutted. Alpacas charmed (they’re not indigenous but have integrated well). Tortoises amused. Owls and raptors enchanted. Dogs barked. Horses performed. And people smiled. Notting Hill Carnival was a universe away, across the Styx, Acheron, Lethe, Phlegethon, and Cocytus.

Hubby and I usually buy a little something(s) at these events. This year it was a large dragonfly garden ornament (not as twee as it sounds), a bottle of chilli-flavoured oil (I’m a lazy if flavoursome cook), a bottle of sloe whisky (can’t wait to try it in a cranachan), and crocus bulbs (aka squirrel-food). We are nothing if not eclectic.

I didn’t visit all the attractions and stalls I’d planned to because I kept bumping into people I knew, and once I start chatting … My victims this week included: the RNLI stallholder (well it was Hubby, so kind of unavoidable); the music-entertainment organiser; his wife – a jewellery stallholder and my ex-gardener; a farmer whose ewe was placed 2nd out of 10 entrants – an outstanding achievement because this wasn’t a show-sheep but one of the working girls; an OU friend whose dog won third prize in the ‘cute’ category (I believe it bombed in the obedience class); a WI Chairwoman; the owl and airport man (long story); the hospice and hedgehog lady (even longer story); the butcher; and a fencer (no, not for stolen goods).

One of the most heart-warming sights at these events is the children. Some barely out of nappies, they don their white coats and expertly lead calves around the ring. Others are smothered in tweed jackets and helmets and bounce up and down on their ponies, probably wishing they were still in nappies. The future of rural England is safe in their hands.

Indeed, if there was anything particularly poignant about this year’s shows, it was the ubiquitous smiles, the stoicism, the camaraderie, and the unspoken but deafening Up Yours, Starmer. On that note, altogether now:

There’ll always be an England
While flags for St George fly
The white, the red, and Union blue
That bind us 'til we die.