There’s something reassuringly familiar about the Chagford Show. Perhaps that’s because it sits pretty much on my doorstep, or perhaps it’s because, for one day every August, a good collection of people, organisations, trade exhibits, competitions and slightly questionable weather forecasts all descend upon one field in the shadow of Castle Drogo

Billed as ‘The Best One Day Country Show’, Chagford has always held a special place in the local calendar and, this year, we were delighted to be invited along to pitch the TACA stand alongside our friends from the National Trust and Moor Trees.

And for the first time I can remember, it even rained on the day! Yes, actual rain…

Not enough, sadly, to make any meaningful difference to the incredibly dry ground beneath our feet, but after the summer we’ve had, it was rather nice to remember what the stuff actually looked like falling from the sky!

A slightly different show this year

There was, however, one noticeable absence this year. Livestock were missing from the show because of the current risk posed by bluetongue and cases within Devon. For a traditional agricultural show, that's a pretty significant change and a reminder that even events which have been part of rural life for generations sometimes have to adapt to what's going on around them. Yet the showground was still packed. Thousands still visited. Conversations over beers flowed, and the displays were busy.

And everywhere you looked, there were people stopping to talk, ask questions and discover something they perhaps hadn't known when they walked through the gate that morning. For us, that's exactly why being a part of it was a good thing.

Taking the river somewhere different

It's very easy when you're involved with rivers and angling to spend most of your time talking to... well, other people involved with rivers and angling! You can probably imagine how those conversations go. Stories of the ones that got away, lengthy discussions about river levels and flies, and the occasional rather optimistic interpretation of exactly what fourteen inches looks like. Like most fishing stories, measurements have always been somewhat open to interpretation!

Luckily, country shows have an ability to burst these bubbles… Over the course of the day we spoke with farmers, families, landowners, anglers, walkers, children and people who had simply wandered over because they'd seen a salmon on one of our banners and wondered what on earth we were doing. Some chats were serious and others considerably less so.

But almost all of them eventually came back to the same place: the River Teign, its wildlife and what collectively we can do to give it the best possible future. And that's awareness happening in probably its simplest form.

*Dr Bertie Warren graced us with his presence…*

Starting ‘em young

Next door to us, the National Trust were demonstrating this rather brilliantly. They've always had a knack for getting youngsters involved rather than simply expecting them to stand patiently while their parents read an information board. This year, one idea in particular caught my attention… Their Woodland Theatre!

Children could create their own wildlife puppets, learn something about the animal they'd chosen and then use those characters to tell its story. What was their species good at? What pressures did it face? What did it need to survive? And, importantly, what could we do to help? It's so simple, but think about what is actually happening.

Instead of telling a kid a species is important, you're encouraging them to discover why. Instead of asking them to remember a collection of facts, you're giving them a character and a story. Suddenly conservation isn't something being explained to them. They're part of it and actually creating the narrative. And I reckon there's a lesson in there for all of us.

Different generations… same conversation

One of the things I enjoy most about these events is watching exactly that happen across generations. At one end of the stand, you can be talking to someone who remembers seeing loads of salmon running the Teign decades ago. Then, later you're explaining to someone considerably younger that, yes, Atlantic salmon are still returning to the catchment today.

Different people with different memories, but ultimately on the same river. That matters because protecting rivers can't simply become the responsibility of those of us currently volunteering to do it. If the work we're carrying out now is going to mean anything in twenty, thirty, or fifty years' time, a new generation will eventually need to pick it up.

And perhaps their first connection with the river won't come from fishing it. Maybe their trigger to get involved will come from a completely different experience? Seeing their first Kingfisher, taking up Riverfly, planting a tree, seeing a salmon leap for the first time, or, quite possibly, making a small cardboard woodland puppet at the Chagford Show! To me, it doesn't really matter where that connection begins… what matters is that it begins in the first place.

*Certainly a photo worthy of a caption competition…*

Getting involved

Which brings me, rather unfortunately, to my own contribution. Having spent much of the day watching youngsters enthusiastically perform their wildlife stories, I felt it would be slightly hypocritical not to have a go myself. Unfortunately, I left my theatrical debut rather late.

By this point, the Chagford Show had pretty much ceased to exist. The crowds had gone. The gazebos were down. The TACA stand was packed away. What remained was an increasingly lonely-looking tarp in the middle of a field, a small wooden theatre façade and a handful of National Trust staff who, through a combination of professional courtesy and not packing quickly enough, now found themselves as my captive audience… Perfect!

During the day I'd quietly managed to create a few characters of my own and, naturally, there was a salmon involved. So, with absolutely no possibility of ticket sales and very little chance of anyone escaping unnoticed, I stepped up to the Woodland Theatre and attempted to tell the Atlantic salmon's story.

From river to sea and, against fairly ridiculous odds, all the way back again. There were predators, migration, obstacles, disappearing habitat and the small matter of surviving several thousand miles in the North Atlantic before hopefully making it home to the gravels where it all began. Basically, Disney... but with considerably more fish mortality!

Whether my performance inspired those assembled or merely confirmed that I shouldn't consider a late-career move into children's theatre remains open to debate, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And as the sun dropped over an almost completely empty showground, I like to think that somewhere amongst the puppets, the lonely tarp and several National Trust employees wondering when they could finally go home, the salmon's story had been told!

See you at the next one

The Chagford Show once again demonstrated why these rural shows remain so important. Yes, they're about agriculture, competitions, crafts, food, enormous veg and an impressive ability to continue regardless of what the British weather decides to throw at them. But they're also about bringing people and communities together.

And for organisations like ours, that creates something incredibly valuable… an opportunity to take the river beyond the riverbank.

To talk to people who might never otherwise come across what we're doing. To share knowledge. To listen to their experiences. To introduce another generation to the wildlife living around them and perhaps leave somebody looking at their local river slightly differently the next time they walk beside it. That's how awareness grows.

Not always through grand campaigns or enormous projects, but conversation by conversation, person by person and, apparently, occasionally through the medium of homemade puppetry!

A huge thank you to everyone involved in organising another brilliant Chagford Show, and to our friends at the National Trust for making us feel so welcome alongside them. Next stop for the TACA travelling circus is the Lustleigh Show on 31st August, so if you're heading along, please come and find us.

We'll bring the books, caps, T-shirts and plenty of river chat. Whether the salmon puppet makes another appearance is currently subject to contract negotiations!

Chagford show