We were honoured to be asked to stage a display at the South of
England Agricultural Society's big show this year. We went along to support
the local branch of the Young Farmers' Club. They have their own building in
the showground and they had staged a superb display of entries for their
competition classes, including homemade cakes, woodland collages and
even hand-decorated ties!

The Woodlanders were asked along to demonstrate traditional crafts for
2 out of the 3 days that the show was to be held. so Chris and I took
the pole-lathe along. It proved to be an interesting display,
with many members of the public stopping to talk to us - not only to
ask questions about the pole-lathe but also to share with us some of their
experiences and knowledge about woodland crafts. In particular, I remember
one gentleman telling me that his father used to work a woodland as a living;
selling products such as bundles of sticks (faggots) for lighting fires. One lady
asked us if we had heard of the term 'flaking' in relation to woodworking. It
wasn't familiar to us - has anyone else heard of this?

Chris discovered that you can attract a large crowd of on-lookers by
making as much noise as possible! Log-splitting proved to be a real
crowd-pleaser - I have never seen so many folk materialise so quickly when
they heard the racket Chris made.

A photographer took some photos and a picture duly appeared in the
July edition of Sussex Life magazine.

- By Jo Burchell-Collins