Show will come to a 'spectacular' end

The marching pomp of the RAF college band will ensure this year's West Mid Show continues to pull in record numbers of visitors, organisers said today.

Alongside the Red Devils parachute freefall team, medieval jousters, monster trucks, Titan the Robot and the national tug of war championships, the band will bring a sense of pageantry that underlines the spirit of the rural community.

Visitors to the county's showpiece event on June 21 and 22 are promised a "mystery spectacular" to end the show on Sunday.

Chairman David Tudor, who outlined his intention to step down from the post following the closing ceremony, said the line-up would send a clear message to the public.

"This year's show proves that the countryside is fighting back against the tough conditions we have witnessed over the last 12 months," he said.

"We have been faced with bluetongue, tuberculosis and, only recently in Oxford, avian flu. But despite this we have a strong livestock section - in many categories we actually have more entries than the Royal Show. As for our entries of Hereford cattle, that is the biggest entry in the whole of Europe."

He also announced that entry prices had been frozen from last year and car parking charges, scrapped last year, would never be reintroduced.

He explained: "We will not go back to parking charges because the problems in terms of traffic entering the site in 2006 was counter productive. We don't want people queuing to Baschurch just to get in.

"Nor have we put our prices up this year as we perceived early that it was going to be a difficult year in terms of the cash available in people's pockets."

Mr Tudor will hand over to chairman-elect Annie Home-Dodd, who will be the first woman chairman of the Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society since its inception.

He said: "This year is likely to be my last and Annie will be a tremendous replacement. She has been a loyal supporter of the show for many years."

By Nathan Rous