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From 1989 we
held our twice yearly meetings at Portchester Parish Hall and when the
new hall was completed in 2001 we moved there, Dave Coates chaired all
the meetings. It therefore seemed logical to make this our new show
venue in 2005 having decided to quit the
Southsea Show
after 32 years.
The hall was ideal for our needs, light and bright with toilet and
catering facilities and plentiful adjacent free parking. It would
mean a lot less work for our dwindling and aging numbers and we hoped
that a fresh start would attract new recruits, sadly this was not to be.
The 2005 - 2008 Shows were over 2 days but so few came through the
door on Sundays that the final show (2009) was reduced to one day. All
five shows were excellently supported by exhibitors, especially by those
outside the area.
Parts of this
text are taken from The Editor's Page &
South Coast Area |
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One advantage of
holding the Show in a hall is that we were not affected by adverse
weather conditions that occasionally troubled us at Southsea. This Show
was on Southsea Common, immediately behind the promenade and the floral
marquee was closest to the sea. In our earlier years, before we were
allocated one entire end of the marquee we were sometimes allocated a
pitch close to a sea facing entrance. On more than one occasion the wind
would literally rock our stand!
One year in the early eighties there was a full blown gale and
torrential rain on the Sunday, the whole showground became a sea of mud.
On breakdown it was so deep at the exits that it was up to car axles -
and I was towing a caravan. One person was killed whilst
dismantling a small marquee, the wind caught it, his legs became
entangled in the ropes and threw all into the air. He came down head
first on top of a car and broke his neck. The following
day we were convinced that it would be the end of the show on the
common as it resembled a ploughed field, but such is the recovery
capabilities of grass and efforts of the ground-staff that after a few weeks the surface was fully
restored. |
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Pictures & text by the Editor
MEMORIES OF
SOUTHSEA |
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