It’s Show Time!

‘Wake up Jaqui; it’s time to go to the Royal Show!’

On this occasion, it was 3 am, I was in Room 36 at the Hilton Hotel, and my brother Nicholas thought it would be bloody hilarious to wake me up from my slumber to enjoy a few seconds of euphoria, before realising it was March, and the Royal Show was a few months away. What an asshole. He really is brilliant. 

Fast forward to July 2021, and I found myself waking up to go to the Royal Show. And yes, I did have a tremendous sense of euphoria. This was despite the news that the showgrounds have been sold, and the days of the Royal Agricultural Show are another vestige of the past. 

Vestiges of the past. Remember going to Mike’s Kitchen and trying to get as many lollipops from the barrel by the door? Remember the fish tank at Da Vinci’s? Remember going to Capital Towers to watch a movie? Remember soft serve from Icy Cool Piping Hot? Remember being underage and trying to get into Buzz Bar? Remember Shuter and Shooter and getting lost in the sea of shelves? Remember going to Super Bodies to watch your mum do aerobics and being blinded by the men in unitards and leg warmers? Remember having a K-TV sticker on your space case and buying a snap bangle from the Lion’s Fair? But most of all, remember the Royal Show. 

I still remember going on the “baby rides” and anxiously looking for my mummy amidst the crowd of parents. Fast forward a few years, and I’m on the carousel, and my dad is standing on the platform next to the pink horse that I’m riding. He’s there in case I get scared, which is almost inevitable because if my Pre Primary report cards are anything to go by, I have the coordination and balance of an inebriated baby giraffe. On ice skates. Later that day, we’ll stand in the queue so my brother and I can get temporary passes to go into the members’ stand so we can watch horses do things I don’t really understand. The name Gonda Beatrix echoing through the loudspeakers. In those days, there was candy floss, those shakey balloons, and toffee apples that I still don’t see the point of. Siff. 

Then it was off to the army display, which was the same every year, but we still went because that’s just “what you do.” A visit to the rabbit hall, which incidentally I got banned from because one year my best friend David had the temerity to ask a woman with a very large “friend of the bunnies” rosette, whether they supply the Boston Barbeque. Sheep shearing, cows on parade, dodging animal crap, lots of hay. The smell of animals with a whiff of doughnut. Lining up to go through the “this is the rainfall cycle” just so that you could get a free Clover yoghurt. And speaking of free food, trawling through the food hall for free samples. Pretending you’re a connoisseur of preserves, with R25 to spend on a jar of posh jam, just so that you can carry on scoffing. Giggling as you walk away thinking you’d hoodwinked the cross jam lady with an ‘I’ll come back later and buy a jar.’ 

And then the second-best bit of the show. The much-underrated hall with all the weird shit made by grannies, bored homemakers, a few house husbands, and kids. I once entered a rock animal, and I’m proud to say that I got a “Commended” award. The judges’ comments applauded my imagination, but were stern in the amount of glue I’d used. ‘Take care not to use too much glue,’ they said. That’s right kids, stay off drugs. Obviously the kid who won had an overzealous mother, or maybe was just blessed with better artistic genes than me? Perhaps this child with the ravishing Highly Commended Rosette was given proper modeling glue instead of a bloody glue gun? Who knows. Safe to say I didn’t enter an artwork again; the judges clearly don’t know genius when they see it. 

In the early days, the arts and crafts hall was the main hall. You entered, and it was just chockablock with shit that would give Marie Kondo a cardiac infarction. I don’t know who makes and collects porcelain dolls, but can I just be clear? Porcelain dolls are more terrifying than clowns. They’re also porcelain, so you can’t play with them. Stop being weird and just buy your kids a Barbie. After the terrifying children of the corn exhibit, it was onto the cake decorators. The same woman won every single year, and I don’t know why other budding cake artists even bothered. 

But the best was looking at the scones. I’ve had a fascination with scones for a very long time, and I really think that if you need two women to judge a scone-off, you could do worse than me and my Emotional Support Animal’s mum Hester Joseph. Hester Joseph is a sconnoisseur, and if you try to deviate and make scones in a muffin tin, or make them square, you won’t get any support from us. There are firm rules about scones, and I’ve done a lot of research into where you can get good scones. You can’t. Bake them yourself; it’s the only way. If you want disappointment go out and order one, they usually crumble into dust, are served with marge, don’t have nearly enough cream, and come with that weird grated cheese that is all melted together in a mess. Have some respect. 

My young self used to spend hours lingering over the glass display cases scrutinizing the scones. Before I’d read the judges’ comments, I could tell that Sheila had overdone done it on the baking powder or Neville had overworked the dough. I could tell Doris had gone rogue and used margarine instead of butter, and that Maureen had nailed it. I didn’t even need to shift my eyes left to the purple ribbon claiming Maureen Queen of Scones for the third year running. 

No matter what age you were, the Looping Star was the major showpiece. Sure the Enterprise, the Breakdancer, The Ship of Death, The Wall of “What The Fuck We’re All Going To Die,” The Swings of “Don’t look up at the rusty latches,” and the House of “Horrors” were all worth a go. But in the end, it was the devastating and sheer Russian Roulette of the Looping Star that made all of us queue up in delighted terror. I maintain that it is the most dangerous roller coaster in the known universe, and it was out of order for most of the show, so it really was a race to get on it. One year people were left dangling upside down from the loopy part, and not even that stopped hyperactive kids from gamboling up the metal stairs once the out-of-order sign was removed for the umpteenth time.

Where were our parents, you might ask? Well, as we learned later on in life, they were off getting pissed at the Foaming Tankard. As we grew up, our priorities changed. Sure we still went on the Looping Star, but not before we tried to sneak in a few Hunter’s Gold, Solanti’s Spices, or good old Black Labels from the well-protected beer tent. Some of us had connections, others relied on older siblings, and some used their powers of persuasion to get any kind of illegal booze past the gates. The trouble is nine times out of ten, someone’s mum or dad recognised you, and then the game was up. ‘Terry, I saw Jaqui and her mates trying to get into the Foaming Tankard.’ Shit. 

And then it was the era of “the big field” where we’d all congregate with a bottle of Mokador and a few Peter Stuyvesant Blues we’d knicked off some suspecting parent. Dressed in our washed-out grey outfits and Dr. Martens, we’d mosh to The Narrow, sing along to Just Jinger, Wonderboom, Sugardrive, and the Springbok Nude Girls, and lose our shit to Fokofpolisiekar. Later we traded our washed-out grey outfits for Coco Bay; some of us held onto our DMs, others opted for Turtles. We were always late for whatever parent drew the short straw and had to drag our teenage asses out of there, still yelling “Lonely Lonely Sunday Morning” at the top of our lungs. A few days later, pneumonia nearly always kicked in. Worth it. 

2021. Everything is so still. So quiet. I can still hear the creak of the turnstiles, the soft crunch of the hay underfoot. I can smell the frying onions and burgers from the Hilton Lion’s Stand, and those doughnuts stationed around almost every corner willing you to be tempted by their tiny hot bods. A crack from a child throwing a pop-pop onto the ground, a sobbing child who’d just dropped an ice cream, and in the distance, the thunderous roll of the Looping Star. Beckoning. 

I get to the Olympia Hall. It’s so quiet. No one is looking at the building built in 1930. People are transfixed by their phones, tapping away. I feel like I’m part of the cow parade, but none of us are mooing; we’re just being herded into the various areas. It’s efficient; it’s cold, the lights flicker. I hear the laugh of a porcelain doll’s ghost in the distance. But I don’t care. I’m as excited as I was to climb those damn metal stairs up to the Looping Star. As the vaccine jabs into my arm, I feel the wind rush on my face as I approach the loop. 

‘Next!’ shouts the nurse. 

And like that, it’s all over.