Rosedale Show returns to Yorkshire moors tinged with sadness after death of chair with 60 years of experience

“Janet lived for Rosedale Show,” says Sam, who is married to Alan, one of Janet’s three sons who, as well as farming in Rosedale are perhaps better known these days for their stone business, Dringstone at Hartoft.

“In Janet’s eulogy I said that Janet thought more about Rosedale Show than she thought about us,” says Sam. “Of course, I said it in fun, but the school and the show were her passions.

Sam says that having been a schoolteacher in the village for so many years Janet always had an ideal contact with just about everybody and used it to the show’s advantage.

“Janet always prepped everybody in the village for the show. Everybody from the school had to enter all the classes, and every one of us within the Dring family had to help at the show and exhibit.

“Janet was involved in everything. The Rosedale History Society, the WI. She was a big community person. Everybody rang her about everything. She was chairman of the show for over 20 years. I took over when she finished in 2010 and I can feel her looking down right now and telling me to just keep it going.

Sam is understandably still raw on emotion over Janet’s passing but says that this year’s show will be the celebration that Janet would have loved it to be, celebrating the past and giving a lovely time for all and doing just as Janet would have wished, by carrying on the show and indeed getting the wheels back turning after its Covid-induced lay-off.

“It’s hard work putting on a show, and especially coming back after three years without it, as I wondered whether some exhibitors with sheep, cattle, horses or taking part in our industrial classes or taking tradestands would have by now dropped it off their calendar and gone elsewhere.

“But entries are looking good and we have our fabulous iconic location, we have new members on the show committee, which has brought new blood in with a fresh approach and have given it a bit of a kick on again this year. We have a fabulous mother and daughter who have done really well on donations and sponsorships.

“Everything is looking positive. It’s nice to have that enthusiasm and it’s added something more to this year’s show. We’re here, we’re back and it’s the show’s 150th anniversary.

“We’ve made the first step and the show is definitely on and on the right track this year.

Rosedale Show’s setting has always been one of its major attractions, rather like the nearby Moors shows of Danby and Farndale too, that moment when you’re at the top of a moors road looking down and can see the showground.

For those who have been many times before there’s that feeling of coming home when reaching the top of Chimney Bank, Yorkshire’s steepest road, and looking down on the showground.

“The thing everybody thinks about Rosedale Show is its perfect setting,” says Sam. “It is just beautiful when you look down from Chimney Bank on to the showfield. Of course, if you wake up on show day when the mist has come you just pray that it will lift. You just know people might take one look and say ‘I’m not coming over the hill in that’, but even then we have stalwart people who will come no matter what.

For Sam this year’s show is probably going to prove a testing time and she knows it.

“It just isn’t the same for me without Janet. I’d be the doer and she’d be the reminder and as she’s now not here I don’t feel quite the same.

“We’ve also lost a number of other wonderful people including farmers Ron Foster of Heygate Farm, who showed his rare breed chickens and sheep and whose family still offer land to support the show; and Alan Myers of Thorgill. Another big sheep man Bill Franks, long-serving show secretary Doreen Perret-Young and Mr Sturdy who was show president twice.

“Another big local man John Dent was a big part of our show and passed during Covid. John was the setter-upper of the show, ex-army, who everybody knew. His family were big Rosedale people. One of my favourite pictures of Janet is with John on his quad bike on the showground at Milburn Playing Fields.

Sam’s hope is that Janet’s legacy will be seen in the new people who get behind Rosedale Show and take it forward for the future.

“Janet won’t just be looking down on me, she’ll be looking down on all of us making sure we are keeping Rosedale Show alive. She knew that a show isn’t just about one section, about the horses, or the cattle or the sheep, she knew it was about the full thing and that you have to understand everybody’s importance to the show.

“It’s also about giving everyone value for money and having lots of exhibitors in all classes; and it’s also about those particularly local and fun things like the good-natured rivalry over the “Men Only Cake Competition”. It is those kind of values that Rosedale Show has always been about.

“The whole world has changed and we’re changing too. We don’t bring in big names as glitzy main ring attractions, but we do understand that the cost of bringing such as heavy horses, that our visitors want to see, is now much more than it was and that’s why we’ve got good prize money, £100 for the best heavy horse this year. You need this to encourage those who bring these great big animals.

“We’ve also got a fantastic gun dog demonstration this year, with a new couple, and a new scurry over bales, as well as show jumping and a really good entry of sheep.

“We also want to see prize money still being paid out at the show, rather than it going online, because that way it is often then spent at the show which supports the tradestands. That’s the kind of thing that can easily be lost if you do it the other way.

Visitors to Rosedale Show will also be able to see an exhibition put together by the local history society which will include material given by Doreen Perret-Young and Janet Dring, including show catalogues going back to 1926.