Meet Ernie Dickinson - who has been visiting the Show for 70 years!

16 June 2016, Press Releases

When the Lincolnshire Show opens its gates next week (22/23 June) for the 132nd time, one of the many thousands of visitors will include Ernie Dickinson who is believed to be the annual attraction’s most regular visitor – notching up 70 shows in his lifetime.

Ernie Dickinson will never forget his first Lincolnshire Show. It was 1946 and the first Show since the end of World War II. His boss at Nocton Estates where 17-year-old Ernie was a horseman, had allowed him and his fellow farm workers the day off to visit the Show.

Of course, the Show wasn’t at the Lincolnshire Showground where it is currently hosted every year. In those days, the Lincolnshire Show travelled around the county – Boston, Sleaford, Grantham…. And in 1946, for Ernie’s first Show, it was the turn of Blankney.

Ernie was wide-eyed. After years of Britain at war, the Show was quite a spectacle. It was busy – there were hundreds of people there and streaming along the roadsides to get in.

But there was good news and bad news. The good news was that there were cattle, horses and sheep tied to the iron railings in the park for all to see. And the bad news? The beer, which wasn’t in plentiful supply since the rationing, ran out by mid-afternoon.

“I remember my first Show very well,” says 87-year-old Ernie. “It was something else. But of course, it was very different to how it is now.

“There were cattle and sheep, but not ever so many. It was just after the war, we were rationed and life was still difficult for us all. In fact, rationing lasted in this country until 1954, so there were a good few years to go.”

The 1946 Lincolnshire Show is a long way off from 2016’s hi-tech extravaganza which attracts more than 60,000 visitors, thousands of animals, high tech agricultural machinery, retailers, show jumping, Red Arrows – and even royalty.

There was no fancy ticketing. Ernie clearly remembers entering the gate at Blankney. The entry fee was half a crown and two men stood at the gate with buckets collecting coins. He remembers that one of the men was tipsy – and wondered whether he was taking the show takings and spending it in the bar!

The following year in 1947, Ernie travelled this time to West Common. This was the year that the Lincolnshire Show combined with the Royal Show. It attracted thousands of people and Ernie remembers it was the year that a grey Ferguson tractor was there for the first time.

“We travelled down from Nocton and came down the hill but the traffic didn’t move,” said Ernie. “So my mate and I walked all the way to the West Common. This time it was very different to my first – there were horses, tractors, cattle…it was fantastic.”

Ernie, who proudly says he worked on the land all his working life, has been going to the Show for 70 years. He’s only missed two – once because he was on jury service and the second was 2001 when the show was cancelled for the first time due to foot and mouth disease.

In the seventies, Ernie became part of the Show – when he began rearing and showing Shire horses. He has photographs of those happy days, showing his horses and sharing the limelight with his wife Edie to whom he was married for 49 years.

“I still enjoy the Show and I look forward to going every year,” he said. “I think it’s important for everyone to go – especially schoolchildren. I heard on the radio the other day that some children thought that bacon comes from chickens. That’s why children should be going to see the animals and understand where their food comes from.”

Ernie comes from a long line of farmers and farm workers. Living now in Metheringham, the local farmland is familiar to him. Agriculture is his blood. A keen gardener, Ernie makes sloe gin and tends his vegetables in his vegetable plot. He is well-respected in the local farming and shooting communities through his many years of countryside pursuits.

It is this passion for the Lincolnshire countryside which encourages Ernie to go to the show, he said.

“Of course, the Lincolnshire Show has changed over the years,” he said. “There is so much more to it now. In the old days, they didn’t have stalls where you could buy things. It was primarily to do with agriculture.

“When I go, I go and have a cup of tea first and then I go and look at the animals. I particularly like the horses and the cattle. I like to look around.”

Ernie will be visiting the Show with his son, Steve, next week and enjoying complimentary entry, members’ perks and lunch as a gift from Show organisers.

Jayne Southall, CEO of Lincolnshire Showground, said: “We were delighted to find out that Ernie had been visiting the Show for 70 years. We think he is our longest standing visitor. Hearing his stories we get a real sense of what the early years of the Show were like.

“It is fantastic to have these memories. He clearly has the Lincolnshire countryside in his blood. Interestingly, Ernie is passionate about younger people coming to the Show and learning about the land and where their food comes from. We can’t thank him enough for his dedication over the years and his massive support of the Show.”