Sue Brooks takes in the marquees and immaculate carrots of the Bream Summer Show.

Moderate winds from the North West. Rain later. Oh No. But I tell myself it doesn’t matter too much. There will be marquees.

The tea tent with its small tables and chairs, and tea in cups with saucers and home-made cakes. Just a few more steps to the big marquee and its long tables with black cloths to show the exhibits off to their best advantage. I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. Bream Summer Show in its 159th year — going continuously since 1865. How can that be? What about two World Wars? What about the weather? More on that later. For now, I want to savour the delights of August 17th 2024.

Bream Silver Band is playing as I queue up to enter the sports field. The view opens up, stretching away to the dense woodland on the horizon. Flower and Produce Shows and Brass Bands — so strongly connected with mining communities — are alive and very well here in the Forest of Dean. The Band has its own three-sided tent with streamers. No one is standing around listening. It’s just part of village life, like church bells on Sundays.

Everyone is inside the marquee, walking slowly, admiringly, around the tables. It feels reverential. I have the Schedule of Classes with the advice for exhibitors: onions. At least 7.5 cms in diameter. Smooth and clean but not excessively skinned. Roots neatly trimmed to the basal plate and tops tied with raffia if possible. Who is Trudi Breadman who wins so many prizes? Who are the nearest contenders? The competition is keen and the standards HIGH. It’s all fascinating and the whole village seems to have turned out. 

What is it about Bream Summer Show that touches my heart so deeply? Is it the care and attention that has been devoted to those three immaculate carrots? Is it the trophies given by past gardeners — Fred Wilce Memorial Challenge Cup for the best potatoes, A.B. Harrison Memorial Cup for Bream Black Peas? Or is it my own favourite – the judge’s little hand-written notes for the First/Second/Third prize winners? All of the above, but it wasn’t until I read Ian Hendy’s superb book UNEARTHED: The history of Bream Flower Show 1865-2015 that I understood it better. The title gives it away.

Ian Hendy is a Bream man and retired history teacher. Perfect credentials for the meticulous research required to bring the story into the light. The photos are there, the names and the people who kept the show going through the war years, the storms and the scandals. They come to life for me on the page. And, there’s  something else — a mystery. The numbers don’t add up. Why was the 150th anniversary held in 2014, and not 2015? Ian is on a quest, and the publication date is due. A final toothcomb search of the local papers reveals the missing link. A small notice at the bottom of Page 4 of the Dean Forest Guardian for July 2nd 1926. Owing to adverse conditions, The Bream Horticultural Society will not hold their Annual Flower and Vegetable Show this year. C.R. Jones. Hon. Sec.

The “adverse conditions”…? Many families were near to starvation. The miners were “locked out” until November — seven months after the General Strike was called off in May 1926. The Local Authority provided food for young children, including during the school holidays, but many older children were evacuated to London to be fostered. Ian was told that some of those children never returned home.

Bream Flower Show is a very special and precious event…I’m proud to have been of service. (Ian Hendy, 2015)

August 2025 will be the 160th Show and I will walk towards the sports field with a lump in my throat and a heart brimming with love and with pride. I can see it now.

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‘UNEARTHED: The history of Bream Flower Show 1865-2015’ is available to buy here (£9.95).