Rodney Dyke is stepping down as the West Show president after his five year stint, but he said looking back, the Monster Trucks of 2017 were his highlight.
2018 had been just as brilliant an event though.
“I think it has to be the monster trucks, I saw them when I was away, and spoke to them. They wanted to come to Guernsey, so we arranged it – that really pulled in the crowds. This year the dinosaur went down well. One of the committee members saw it when they were in the UK, and recommended it. That was really popular.”
Although Wednesday started with rain, he said, as soon as it stopped the crowds headed down. However, the show also slightly suffered from this year’s heatwave too.
“It was a damp start on Wednesday, but we don’t usually have many people down in the morning anyway. Once the rain had stopped, people were pouring in. In the evening, you couldn’t even get into the beer tent, there were that many people. Overall it has gone very, very well indeed.
“We were slightly down on entries because of the dry summer, because if there is no rain, the vegetables don’t grow. Wednesday was absolutely excellent – we had to open another field for parking.”
One of the great things about such a community event, he said, was that so many people went along, allowing for many friendships to be rekindled.
“There is such a lovely atmosphere, loads of people say they bump into people they haven’t seen for 12 months. I saw some I hadn’t seen for 40 years! We spoke for ages putting the world to rights, and then carried on. It was wonderful.”