Video: Sun shines on North Yorkshire’s Nidderdale Show

Mr Verity, now aged 101, travelled to today’s show to join his friends for the big one-day spectacle, which is the grand finale of the summer show season in North Yorkshire.

Since first showing a bantam here as a child, Mr Verity who has farmed at Masham and Barrowby Grange near Harrogate, has rarely missed an instalment and he attended a record 81 consecutive years making an appearance, only for a hospital visit for an operation two years ago to end his remarkable run.

“I first came to Nidderdale with my parents,” Mr Verity said.

“I showed a bantam and got first prize with it and sold it to the judge. I was attracted to it ever since.

“I have made so many friends here. I know so many people in the area. It’s a lovely showground and there are some lovely people. It’s the most hospitable show I’ve known.”

Sheila Cornforth is another show stalwart whose dedication to the secretarial work behind this event’s, and many other agricultural shows’, rabbit section recently saw her receive the national Walker Cup from the British Rabbit Council after being nominated by her peers.

Mrs Cornforth, 74, of Easingwold, said she was flattered by the recognition.

“I have run this section for ten years and helped the two previous secretaries since the 1980s.”

She has shown rabbits since 1962 having picked up the hobby from her then husband and now keeps about 30 Belgian hares and Hulslander rabbits.

“I find them interesting and go to a lot of agricultural shows over the summer with my son Robin,” Mrs Cornforth said.

Outside the poultry tent and the showground at Bewerley Park bathed in late summer sun for much of the day, making for ideal conditions for farmers to showcase their best animals in the livestock rings.

It was a triumphant first outing at the show for Heather and Jim Marks and their stockman Chris Strom of Bishopton near Sedgefield, County Durham, who claimed the supreme beef cattle championship with their Limousin bought at Skipton in May - their fourth supreme championship win of the season.

“We can’t believe it,” Mr Marks said.

The reserve beef champion was a four-and-a-half-year-old British Blue shown by John Stephenson of Bordley near Malham.

The top dairy animal belonged to Andrew Jennings of Fountains Abbey, Ripon, a Holstein heifer by the name of Merrydale SS Polly, which he bought from a friend. It pipped Dewsbury farmer James Young’s Jersey second calver which was the overall dairy reserve champion.

Youth took the glory in the sheep pens.

William Watson, 15, of Hellifield, paraded a three-year-old Texel tup with his father Paul and took the prize for best sheep in the show. Francis Caton of Weston near Otley took the overall reserve sheep champion title with a Blue Faced Leicester.