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From shire horses to the Royal Marines, welcome to the annual Newark Show. A serious business for the farming community, with prizes to win and 800 gallons of beer to be drunk.

Documentary 1984 23 mins

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Overview

Taking a fly-on-the wall approach this documentary from Central Television is firmly in the non-sensationalist camp of reality television. The camera freely roams across the site of the 1984 Newark agricultural show revelling in the small detail as the farming community mixes with visitors from the industrial East Midlands. A trouble free show apart from a missing child and the drinkers turned away from the members' bar.

The annual festival of farming organised by the Newark and Nottinghamshire Agricultural Society has a history that stretches back in Newark to the nineteenth century and before that to an earlier Newark May Fair. From the 1960s the event was based on a site formerly occupied by RAF Winthorpe in the town.