I need to clear the backlog of unwritten write-ups so will scribble some words about it soon.
I loved it. Just a brilliant atmosphere. Very friendly. So much to look at. The site's 600 acres & they reckon they get over 200,000 people through the gates. Did you see the snaps of the Watercress Line loco? They put down 50 feet of railway track & there was this bloody great steam train, all fired up & going nowhere in the middle of a field! The site's on a hillside & covers half a dozen fields. In the evening you could hear the train whistle going across the fields in the darkness -quite spooky & mourneful, especally when all the other traction owners answered it.
In another field there was a team of navvies, hard at work building a road that went nowhere. Rock crushers, rollers, tarmac boilers, stripey wooden barricades, men at work signs -even a tea hut. Very surreal.
It was alternately lashing down with rain with hurricane force winds or bright sunshine. They put an announcement out on the tannoy -Would Mr Clark return to his tent because it's no longer there!
It
was like a festival. I think it must be the Young Farmers' annual get-together -lots of jovially drunk blokes & some truly gorgeous farm girls.
They had 6 huge marquees, each with a series of live bands playing all day. Some cracking music too. Loved the mandolin player with the clog dancers called "Spank the Planks", & Lady Winwood's Maggot -sort of U2/country rock. Would've liked to have seen Ultimate Madness or Queened & also United Stoats of America. Great, warm, cosy atmosphere in the marquees when it was pouring down outside.
I left at 9pm. Would've left at 8 but I lost my bearings in the dark & spent an hour trying to find the right carpark! I was seriously tempted to buy a 12 ton Warrior steam roller but wasn't sure I could tow it home behind the Mankymobile!
A thoroughly recommended day out.