TRUCKS GALORE
SMEATHARPE
May 31 26
By
Lynne Pearl
It was really hot this year, in fact the cows were looking at us gratefully as we drove in car after car because they had been moved out of their accustomed fields up on the Smetharpe WW2 airfield to the shade of nice big barn. They weren’t going to be out in the sun. The visitors were.
Smeatharpe is a tiny place high in the Blackdown Hills but for several day in May it becomes the Truckers Mecca for all who can get there from wherever they come from.. It is signposted but it isn’t easy to find because it isn’t on the way to anywhere but maybe that’s why truckers like it, it is their kind of place. And this is all about the trucker’s identity as a culture and a cultural event. And this year it was with bells on. There were so many visitors.
We parked up and started out having put a GPS pin on the car because at the end of long day how are you going to find your car in a huge field, flat on top of the world with nothing in sight but other cars and rows of trucks.
And that is what greeted us, row upon row of beautiful huge trucks, all parked up in precision and sitting in the boiling hot sun waiting to have their photo taken. So the big hauliers were there but especially the big local firms. This is an agricultural area and what they need has to be brought to them and what they produce has to be shipped away.
The trucks are the backbone of the economy and this is what the event was telling us and that that without them we weren’t going to get very far. But we walked and walked past ride after ride and people dressed as dinosaurs that roar and frighten small children, and Elvis singers, and cowboys, large teddies and there were prizes to be won in shooting galleries. We were looking for the stunt ring and did eventually find it. Beside it was a circus activities tent and on arriving we had been greeted by a man on stilts riding a bicycle. We were suitably impressed. How do they do that?
Hiding in the beer tent was the only place to hide out as it was boiling in the hot sun high up on the flat top of the Hills. But meanwhile a wrestling match or two was starting in the ring. And the stunt riders were getting ready.
But first here was the stunt trucks which were going to perform stunts to the admiring crowd who watched and we all gasped hoping for the best every time. The fancy truck was the shiniest red and the driver was inside. And subsequently an old car was smashed up.
It was chummy in the beer tent, eveyone talking to everyone else about their family and their crazy kids and all that. Eventually a country and Western singer began to sing and it was like Johnny Cash all over again. It was reminiscent of North America and in fact everywhere there was the Stars and Stripes as well as the Union Jack.
It was a grand day and we ate the appropriate fish and chips and sandwiches and of course ice cream at some point. But not until we got home because the queue for the ice cream truck was round the corner.
But families and children were there in abundance and babies cried or slept and siblings sat together on the grass in the tent eating their lunch with Mum and Dad. There were four brothers in ascending ages from the toddler right up to the young teenager. They were peacefully eating and tolerant of the needs and demands of the youngest of the four.
Our children played and watched and enjoyed all the fun that there was to be had and especially the food of the fair.
And it was the heat of the day that moved us, a glorious blue aqua sky.
Not a cloud anywhere!
