BRECON County Show secretary Peter James has paid tribute to the “fantastic efforts and hard work” of everyone who ensured this year’s event was “such a great success”.

Despite a torrential storm which caused problems with parking and made some of the busiest show areas hard to negotiate because of the mud, he said the preparations that had taken “12 months of hard work” to put in place went pretty much according to plan.

“It really was a great success,” he said.

“And all that was down to how everyone from the show chairman Clive Thomas and the president Richard Griffiths to the judges, people who ran the trade stands, the exhibitors, the stewards and volunteers who directed the traffic and everyone else all pulled together. It was an amazing effort… in a way it was quite humbling.

“Everyone put in their stint. It seemed everyone in Brecon helped in some way, we had people from the Rotary Club helping with the crowds and the street pastors were there helping too.

“Josie Evans who runs the sheep section is typical of all those who worked so hard… she’s a diamond to work with.”

This was Mr James’s second show and he was delighted with how it went. He became show secretary after a farming friend “put my name forward” for the unpaid role which comes with a small honorarium.

He added: “We had so much to offer the public – from the traditional judging of livestock such as the horses, cattle and sheep as well as a poultry barn and the horticulture section to the displays in the main ring, including the sheep shearing, motocross display team, vintage machinery and vehicle displays as well as the gun dogs, fly fishing display and ferret racing.

“It was a shame about the weather but mostly our arrangements held firm, even though there’s only one way into and out of the showground over the humped bridge.”

Mr James, who was born on a farm in Trallong, joined the Royal Navy as a young man and also has an electrical engineering background.

He has many friends in the farming community and has some secretarial experience which is vital for his role with the Brecknock Agricultural Society, which every year organises the show.

The show was established in 1755 and is the oldest agricultural show in the UK.

The only blip from an organisational point of view was the no-show by the WWII Dakota plane, which was meant to do a fly past.

Although many people put this down to the adverse weather conditions, in fact the Dakota was unable to take to the air because of a mechanical problem.

Mr James said organising the County Show was a “365-day task” for many people.

During Show week the pace of organisation becomes frenetic with marquees, animal pens and barriers put in place and the rings built on The Watton showfields.

Even after the show there is plenty of work to do with the collation of the results, people to thanks and events to be organised such as the crops presentation evening in November.

“It’s a great challenge and the hours are long but the support you get from people and the reaction we’ve had from the public who came to the show made it all worthwhile.”