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Yorkshire
Wartime Experience
June 22/24th - Report by Stephen A. Carr
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The
Yorkshire Wartime Experience is a new event for 2012, organised as a
private venture by Stuart Wright and Ken Pugh. We arrived late
Thursday afternoon, to be there for the school visits on Friday. We
got the tent up in the dry, but the weather forecast of light and
heavy showers was slightly incorrect as we suffered torrential rain
Thursday night. It wasn't a good sign when various vehicles were being
towed INTO the site through the mud by tractors, but the organisers
had come too far to call it off by that time. All the 4x4 military
vehicles seemed to manage ok, but some of the 2x4's and general
traders/fairground vehicles got stuck.
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The
torrential rain continued on Friday and it looked like it was going to
be the Yorkshire Water Experience! I don't think all the planned
school visits turned up, though I did see a number of school children
hiding from the rain in the beer tent! There wasn't a great deal there
on Friday, as many vehicles and dioramas had cancelled or just didn't
show, and it was a real shame after so much effort by Stuart and Ken.
It has the potential to be a great show, with the site being huge. The
heavy rain formed a lake in the arena, which must have contained a
couple of hundred thousand gallons at least, but that was still only a
small fraction of the arena space, and the arena was only one of about
four or five fields available for displays.
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Two
marquees were overturned immediately behind us on Friday due to very
strong gusty wind, but our tent survived overnight by being roped to
the truck and a nearby fence. Saturday still had showers, some heavy,
but was dryer than the previous day allowing the show to continue to
some degree. I counted around 40 vehicles during my Saturday morning
walkabout.
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Some
of the planned activities took place, such as the firing display by
the field gun crew, but much had to be re-arranged due to ground
conditions and missing entries. Our luck ran out late on Saturday as
our steel frame tent took off and got shreaded in the gales. It has
done us six years, but there was still life in it yet, although after
Friday, it was going to need waterproofing again! So we packed up and
left on Saturday evening, hoping the weather would improve for
everyone else the following day. From accounts I've heard, Sunday was
also reasonable, and I'm guessing some of the more local vehicles
turned up to play in the mud.
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pictures from Mike Humphreys |
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