An important event in the town’s annual calendar - the
most important event, some
might say – is the good ol’ Shrewsbury Carnation & Gooseberry Show, as it
used to be called back in 1836 when the
first Show was held in the Frankwell area of town.
In 1857, the 'gooseberries and carnations' bit was dropped and the Show became known as ‘The Flower Show’.
It was held in a marquee in the town centre and by 1874 was making a
profit of one shilling and ten pence [about 10p today]. In 1881, the entertainment is recorded
as including Bon Bon the tightrope walker with his 150ft long tightrope, standing
at 40 feet above the ground.
The Flower Show continued yearly until the First World
War. Its revival in 1920
was attended by people from across the UK. By the Second World War, it was being held in
the Quarry, Shrewsbury’s main park. Except for the years when the Quarry was dug over
for allotments as part of Shrewsbury’s war effort, it’s been there ever
since. 
And now here we are again – August, and it’s Flower Show
time. All the usual pageantry of military band and
Mayor and entourage has taken place, and down at the Quarry gates, people are jostling to get in to the strains of a steel band playing ‘You Are My
Sunshine’.
There’s a sameness about the Flower Show. Same
marquees, same trophies, same sorts of events, same showground, same time of year, heralding the end of summer with the evenings
closing in and the skies dark enough for fireworks by 9.45pm. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the
biggest events of its type in the UK - until recently its longest-running -
Shrewsbury’s Flower Show is an institution.
It’s also a great place for meeting people. Before I’m
even through the gates I bump into Karen Higgins of The Big Busk. Then, inside the Showground, the first
person I meet is Bill Morris, who used to be a Town Councillor, and is the
person who first told me about the Shrewsbury Fragment [something I’ve yet to
write about but, believe me, you’ll be fascinated when I do]. 
Then the next person I meet
is Helen Ball, Town Clerk, in a big pink flowery hat that looks very
fetching. Then down the central avenue of the Quarry, amongst its cheek-by-jowl stalls and hospitality suites, I find my old friend, the artist
Penny Timmis, and some of her paintings.
We stop to chat in the Brewin Dolphin hospitality suite, where the paintings are hanging, then I leave Penny holding
court and head down to the river. Here I find that railway tracks have been lain, and the oldest still working
narrow-gauge steam engine is huffing up and down. There’s a real mix of stuff down here - fluffy
toys, garden furniture, a distant voice attempting to sell the Light n’ Easy
Eco Deluxe Steam Mop [‘I’ll be honest with you,’ the sales patter goes], even a
stall promoting Orthotic Works, whatever they might be, and another one selling Gnu Airers. What
are they?
When I get hungry [which hasn't happened yet] there are stalls selling everything from carvery and grill to a mountain of meringues. In the Food Marquee, a TV chef is demonstrating how to cook before a capacity audience, but I don’t stay, lured away by the irresistible sound of a male voice choir performing Men of Harlech on the bandstand outside.
By the bandstand I meet my Welsh friend, Dai,
who’s no mean singer himself. Then
I’m off again, heading for the main marquees, which are what the Show is all about. In the first of them I encounter the smoothest potatoes I’ve ever seen in my life, followed by the biggest onions and carrots so
exquisitely tapered that it’s hard to believe they haven’t been sculpted. These are competition-class vegetables. 
And these are the trophies waiting to be won.
I walk past cabbages that look like green elephants
with waggling ears, cauliflowers with white hearts as big as dining-plates and
gooseberries as big as apples, I swear [well, maybe crabapples].
After them I find rows of flowers, and fruit & vegetables, arranged in displays.
Some of the marquees celebrate what local gardeners
and gardening clubs have produced, others showcase what the market leaders in
the horticultural industry have to show. Between the marquees I find a series of small gardens, my
favourite being this one by the Dingle Nurseries near Welshpool.
I come across a scarecrow competition, where the best
man, most definitely I reckon, has won.
Then, back inside again, I find banks of feathery
grasses...
...a riot of
sarracenias [a fancy word for carnivorous plants]...
...and a display of different types of bougainvillea. People go on about the
Dingle in the Quarry being a riot of colour, but this riot of softer, more
subtle hues is more my cup of tea.
The day wends on. I stop to watch a falcon settle on a man’s wrist. I linger by the showground where white-helmeted motorbike riders have recently
come off. It’s show-jumping time. Riders on twitchy horses are limbering
up, awaiting their turns. ‘It’s Tim Davies on Salome II,’ a voice announces
over the sound system, to be greeted by a smattering of polite applause. ‘Smack
on the time,' I hear as I walk away. 'That’s a clean round…. Tim Davies on Salome II… leading by five
seconds ex-act-ly…’
In the evening, I’m back again. Bellowhead’s playing, and the arena is
divided in two. Either you’re
sitting beneath your blanket behind the arena's outer rim looking as if the cold is
getting to you, or you’re on the hallowed turf, bobbing up and down, waving
your arms in the air as the bass goes through you, connecting you to everybody
else.
Bellowhead’s an eleven-piece outfit of electric-folk
musicians belting out traditional tunes and numbers of their own with a mix of
fiddles, big-band brass and lots of attitude. Definitely the best fun’s to be had right in front of the
stage within breathing distance of the band. These boys and girls certainly know how to work a crowd.
Eventually they’re gone, however, and people move back
behind the barriers. The sky darkens, the spotlights come on and the marching
band reappears, creating a sea of red and gold against the green of the turf. It plays all the old numbers that
come out every year, and people are instantly out of their seats, on their feet
and singing along. 'Land of Hope And Glory'. 'Jerusalem'. 'Rule Britannia'. 'Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau' [Land
of My Father’s to anyone non-Welsh -
I love it that at this Flower Show, here in the Northern Marches
between England and Wales, we respect the Welsh Anthem as well as the English
one].
And then here it comes, of
course, 'God Save The Queen', after which it’s time for the bands to march away -
and for the fireworks to begin.
What can I say about the
fireworks? Even more than the
Flower Show, they’re a Shrewsbury institution. Never mind the 50,000 people who over two days will be
watching from inside the Show – on the bridges, in pub gardens all over town,
on the far shore of the River Severn, and up on Beck’s Field with its view of
fireworks reflected in the water [and of smoke drifting away between the
trees], it’s party time.
Everybody in Shrewsbury loves
the two nights of the Flower Show when the Reverend Ron Lancaster’s Kimbolton
Fireworks [they of London’s New Year celebrations and many of our royal
pageants] illuminate our town. For
a moment in time we’re all lit up, faces raised before a night sky full of
exploding stars - little kids again, gasping and wowing as the band plays
Holst’s Planets [Mars, I think], Bizet’s Carmen, the William Tell Overture and
Porgy and Bess, fireworks going off in time to them, carefully choreographed, bang,
bang, bang.
Then it’s darkness again. For
fifteen dazzling minutes we’ve been drawn together by a bit of magic, courtesy
of gunpowder and fire. Now we draw
apart again, heading for the exits, the Flower Show over for another year. At
the main gate, a lone piper pipes us out to Scotland the Brave. The man at the
gate says, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Goodnight’ to everyone passing him by, as if each us had been his own personal guest. A typical Shrewsbury touch, that.
At the bottom of Claremont
Bank, a fleet of Park & Ride buses are waiting to carry people away. You’d
never think so many people could just disappear, but they do. Like the smoke
between the trees they’re suddenly gone, and then Shrewsbury falls quiet, nothing left but to clear up those abandoned marquees.
