village show - Debbie Young's Writing Life

A Place in the Rain

Posted on February 22, 2017February 21, 2017 by Debbie Young

My column for this month’s Hawkesbury Parish News

clare-gma-and-david-penny — David Penny chatting up my mum at the Hawkesbury Show on the Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest stand

My friend David Penny, who writes historical novels set in Spain, has just been accepted to appear on A Place in the Sun. This television programme helps weather-weary would-be expats find a new home in the foreign country of their choice.

Authors make great candidates for the programme because as people who spend their days imagining themselves in different places, they’re good at walking into a house and picturing what it might be like to live there. Relocating to the place that’s the setting for their books must feel like a dream come true.

Cover of Best Murder in Show by Debbie Young — Due to launch 22nd April at Hawkesbury Upton Lit Fest

Tempting though it is to pitch for a spot myself, not least because the show’s guests get a free week’s holiday out of it, it wouldn’t work for me, because the novels I’m writing now are set in a small fictitious Cotswold village called Wendlebury Barrow, inspired by Hawkesbury Upton.

All characters and incidents are entirely fictitious, not only because I don’t want to be sued. It’s also because events in Hawkesbury are often so funny/bizarre/surprising that you couldn’t make them up if you tried.

And that’s another reason I’m glad to be living here. At this time of year especially, it may be cold, wet and grey, but life in Hawkesbury Upton is certainly never dull.

Cover of The Incubus by David Penny — Reviewed on my book blog

If you’d like to know more about David Penny’s books, check out my review of his latest novel, The Incubus, over on my book blog.

Personal life, Writing

When the Dust Settles…

Posted on November 8, 2015July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

My column for the November issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

There can’t be many corners of Hawkesbury that have been unaffected by builder’s dust this autumn.

Lately, between the road works on France Lane and the extension that my husband is building at the back of our house…

…I’ve been living in a cloud of fallout, trying not to think of Pompeii. I’ve sneezed enough for it to count as my recommended daily thirty minutes of vigorous exercise.

Continue reading “When the Dust Settles…” →

Family, Personal life

It’s Show Time! (Hawkesbury Horticultural Show, that is…)

Posted on August 25, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

This post was written for this month’s edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News, in anticipation of the Village Show at the end of this month. Looking back at the photos of our float last year, I am wishing hard that we’ll have such blue skies for this year’s show!

Photo of Pandamonium float with children dressed as pandas — Our float for last year’s Show (I was the Chinese Ambassador, Gordon was the Scottish zookeeper)

I hadn’t lived in Hawkesbury Upton very long before I realised the importance of the annual Horticultural Show in the village calendar. Since I moved here in 1991, I haven’t missed a single Show, and I always arrange my summer holidays to make sure I’m back in time to prepare for it.

I’ve put plenty of entries into the Show over the years and won a handful of prizes in categories as diverse as crochet, hen’s eggs, jam, wine and – my favourite prize of all – the oddly-shaped vegetable (sadly no longer in the schedule).

I’ve been on many floats, from Youth Club’s Global Warming in the 1990s (Arctic scene at one end, tropical island at the other) and St Trinian’s, to more recently The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with After-School Club, and Edinburgh Zoo’s Giant Pandas with my daughter and her friends last year.

It’s always exciting to win a prize, even third in a category in which there are only two other entries, but you don’t need to win prizes to enjoy the Village Show. The most satisfaction comes simply from feeling like you’re part of a huge, traditional act of community.

It’s also rewarding to serve on the Committee, which I did for 13 years. I’ll never forget seeing at one meeting an elderly judge demonstrate his set of brass shallot-measuring rings, as used by his father before him. The Hawkesbury Show is living history.

But the most unexpected buzz relating to the show struck me only recently, when, at my daughter’s 11^th birthday party, I was chatting to her friends’ mums in our garden. One of them, relatively new to the village, was taking photos of the children’s antics.

“You ought to enter that into the Village Show,” I remarked, admiring a particularly good one.

“Spoken like a true Hawkesbury villager!” said another mum, whose family has been in Hawkesbury for generations.

23 years after moving here, I’ve finally arrived.

Happy Show Day, everyone!

The 2014 Show will take place on Saturday 30th August. For more information, visit its website: www.hawkesburyshow.org.

Personal life

Hawkesbury Show and Tell

Posted on August 8, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

photo of the field on Hawkesbury Show Day — Can we have weather like this, please?

Last night I had a terrible nightmare. I was in the marquee at the Hawkesbury Horticultural Show when I realised I’d forgotten to put in any entries. There I was in a tent full of exhibits and none of them bore my exhibitor number.

Speaking as a past prize winner, this dilemma doesn’t bear thinking about. Okay, so most of my prizes have been in dubious categories such as the odd-shaped vegetable (it was a tomato – don’t ask!) Our hen’s egg entry was also interesting. In our first year of poultry keeping, we assumed that eggs were judged only on size and colour. For weeks we saved our hens’ biggest and brownest. We didn’t realise they’d be cracking them open. Six week old eggs and a hot show tent are not a good combination.

Bad eggs aside, our village show – one of the oldest of its kind in the country – demonstrates our community at its best, bringing together old and young alike.

And I mean at its best. Judges of unparalleled skill and experience ensure the high quality is maintained. A few years ago, when I was on the Show Committee, I attended a meeting at which the onion judge was present. He’d travelled from afar to share his knowledge. He produced from his pocket a set of silver rings, specifically made to check the size of onions. They’d been passed to him from his father. As he was well into retirement, I reckon the rings had been in use for nearly a century. We were in awe.

But don’t let the judges’ high standards put you off submitting an entry. The ultimate prize is not the individual’s red rosette, but one we can all share: a tent full of produce and crafts, representing just about everyone in the village. So not like my nightmare at all, then.

Happy Show Day, everyone!

Red rosette for first prize winners at Haweskbury Horticultural Show — A prize day out for all the family

Hawkesbury Horticultural Show takes place on the last Saturday in August in the Cotswold village of Hawkesbury Upton, Gloucestershire. For more information, visit the Show’s official website.

And in case you want to know more about the poultry-keeping, here’s a post about how we ended up Recharging Battery Chickens.

This post was originally written for the Hawkesbury Parish News (August 2012).