Wensleydale Show 2023: The new show manager who built his own 'Pumpkinator' machnine

James says that when he moved back to Yorkshire, having lived in Lancashire with his wife Lindsay, he was keen to be involved with the show even though he’d hardly ever been in his early days of growing up in Crakehall.

“I’m involved with agriculture in my business and just felt I wanted to do something to help the show, so I rang the secretary and said I was interested in being involved and was happy to come and help. In the week of the run-up to the show I got a call asking if I could give a hand.

“I landed at the showground on the Friday afternoon, the day before the show, and met David. I was putting fences up, chairs out, sorting out the bins, basically anything that needs to be done that some people just think happens magically.

“David must have decided that I was worth keeping on because I’ve been working alongside him ever since. I knew him before getting involved with the show, but not that well. He’s pretty easy going. There are people who get quite wound up about stuff, and that can be quite entertaining, but David knows how to deal with them.

James clearly has a great respect for David and the time he has given to Wensleydale Show, and also believes that how he and David have now transferred the showfield manager’s baton could be a useful blueprint for the show’s future.

“David has been showfield manager for a lot of years and this will be my first show as the official showfield manager. David had the foresight to know that somebody needed lining up so that he could do a bit less and he’s probably done the show society a lot of good because I think others are realising that they could do to bring on the next person too.

“When you think about it, these wonderful people who have given so much have all that knowledge and if something happened to any of them and they have not passed on their experiences it can make it difficult for those who have to step in.

James has had several years of experience with David and also has a strong team that includes local man Steve Allan.

“Together we all make a great team. David is still here, Steve is great and we have a young lad called James who does a fantastic job, plus others who turn up on the day and do everything asked of them.

“Normally, by about 11 o’clock on show day any disasters that needed sorting have been sorted.

James will always try to help anyone and try to make sure everyone is happy, but he also has that thick skin that showfield managers are either born with or develop over the years, combined with the head wobble over some people.

“I really enjoy doing it. It’s good fun and also hard work, but it does you good to do a bit of graft on behalf of something, and it’s quite rewarding seeing the show go well. There’s a good craic too with the camaraderie around the show. It’s a great show.

“The ones that are the biggest pain are often the ones that get so irate about the smallest stuff, stuff that really doesn’t matter, and if they start getting arsy with me I won’t have it. We are all doing things at the show voluntarily. I can’t be dealing with people who get arsy. There’s no need.

“I sometimes think that if that’s the biggest thing you’ve to worry about you should consider yourself very lucky.

Some who purely attend shows never think that those who give their time freely have their own lives and careers beyond them.

James grew up obsessed with tractors which led to a career in agricultural engineering.

“Tractoring was the one thing I wanted to do all the time as a kid. I worked on local farms, went to Askham Bryan College and Harper Adams studying agricultural engineering and worked with Tim Gibson, who I went to school and college with, in setting up his robotic milking business and as a demo driver for Krone and Amazone before setting up on my own.

“I started as JF Hudson in 2014, an agricultural engineering and fabricating business, and we make our own products too. We are also now importers of Spapperi machinery from Italy. I’d approached them from the UK, but it was when I turned up at an agricultural machinery show in Bologna that they realised how serious I was.

“So far, I’ve built my own machine called a Pumpkinator for weeding pumpkins; and I’m involved with Lactalign a product for dairy parlours that helps balance clusters on dairy cows. When I set off nearly 10 years ago I certainly didn’t expect to be importing machines from Italy and selling to farmers or patenting products with Philip Metcalfe of Washfold Farm.

James is also now farming, in a small way, in his own right.

“During lockdown I started growing pumpkins. We now grow 15,000 for the wholesale market.

This year’s Wensleydale Show sees local landowner where the show is situated, Joyce Sunter as Show President and will feature Ben Atkinson & His Action Horses as the main ring attraction twice during the day.

Wensleydale Show attracts around 8,000 to 10,000 and has 16 individual pedigree sheep breed classes including its own Wensleydale breed, plus a strong dairy section as well as beef cattle and big classes for horses, including heavy horses.

James says that of all the things he has heard at the show the funniest was at a meeting after the show when hearing someone had been very unhappy having been given a second place, in a class where there was just one competing. It wasn’t in a livestock class.

“They were given second place, but they were the only person in the class! Apparently, the judge thought it would inspire them to try harder! It was a good job I was sat at the back of the room that night.

Running a close second was overhearing this one lad who’d come in his Lamborghini and had parked in field, saying: ‘And that was the first day I did 180mph’ and nobody questioned him about where? That’s the sort of stuff that makes it quite entertaining.