Denbigh, 50 years after

Lance Neita, Contributor

THE DENBIGH Agricultural Show was the big highlight of the summer holidays in my tender years. It shared top ranking with the Sunday School outing as the staple items of every youngster's back-to-school composition, 'How I spent my summer holidays'.

The showground was only four miles from our village and we walked the distance religiously to and from without giving a thought to sun, rain, or shine.

Denbigh was the show, the fair, the 'big tent' come to town. It was a day for crowds, family reunions, three-card professionals, music, theatre, and popcorn, peppermint, chewing gum and mint stick.

And oh yes, the agriculture, the livestock, and the cattle judging, but for young boys all this took second place to the excitement generated by the exhibitions, colourful pavilions, the music, the concerts, and running into cousins, aunts and uncles whom you could bait for a three-pence or a six-pence spending money.

We headed first to Nestlé's booth where there was always a free cup of ice-cold, delicious Milo. That must have been the most popular stop for the thousands that passed through Denbigh in my time.

We toured the parish pavilions, paused at the fishing pond, watched the parades, stepped carefully through the animal holding areas, and kept out of the way of the dignitaries as they strode imperiously around the grounds.

Train halt

A point of interest was the train halt where we watched passengers alighting from the coaches specially laid on by the Jamaica Government Railway for patrons travelling from Kingston, Frankfield and Montego Bay.

Denbigh always provided close- ups of faces seen only in the newspapers. In our time, we urchins managed to peep over the barricades to get a glimpse of Norman Manley, Rudolph Burke, Percy Broderick, Rose Leon, Tom Girvan, Sir Hugh Foot, Governor Munoz Marina from Puerto Rico, and the many other dignitaries who made Denbigh a compulsory stop on their official visits to Jamaica.

I remember a black limousine threading its way cautiously through long lines of spectators in 1955. We waved to a pale, thin and scared-looking face in the back seat, none other than Her Royal Highness, the young Princess Margaret.

In later years, I got a close-up of Sir Alexander Bustamante's humour. He had just returned from the 1962 commonwealth conference where he had made an impression when he warned that the presence of the European Common Market posed a threat to the continued existence of the commonwealth.

"They (his political detractors) said I couldn't talk, but I told the prime ministers that the common market was like a knife cutting through the heart of the British Commonwealth," he said as he addressed the crowd at Denbigh. Then he paused and chuckled. "It is a very sharp knife. It sharper than Dr Eldermire knife." Dr Eldermire, his minister of health, enjoyed a hearty laugh sitting in the stands beside his Chief.

Keep your distance

There was one place we children could not visit. It was a tree in the centre of the grounds, and like the instructions given to Adam and Eve, we were warned to keep our distance.

It was the famous Logwood Tree Bar, a mecca for farmers from Hanover to St Thomas who made a tradition of setting up appointments to "meet me at the logwood tree" every year.

The first all-island show, known then as the Middlesex County Agricultural Show, was held on Saturday, August 1, and Monday, August 3, 1953. Interestingly, August 2 being a Sunday, no public activity beyond church-going was encouraged in those days.

With the Sunday intermission in mind, a strong call was made for the Jamaica Agriculture Society (JAS) to hold an annual national thanksgiving church service for farmers at the showgrounds on the Sundays and to declare the day 'Farmers Day'. This did not come to pass.

Denbigh continues to bring in the crowds. Last year, the show regained some of its former pomp, popularity and gala setting, but organisers still fall short of the mark of converting Denbigh into a year-round attraction as envisioned by JAS presidents past and present.

Perhaps Tufton's innovativeness may help to see that dream realised.

Comments to columns@gleanerjm.com or lanceneita@hotmail.com.