Hawkstone Farmers' Choir have got me tuning into Britain's Got Talent for first time in years: Sarah Todd

Of course, the wet lettuces tried to spoil it with worries about heat exhaustion and the animal rights’ lot harped on about it not being a vegan cheese, but the plucky organisers ploughed on with the centuries-old tradition, which involves competitors hurling themselves down a near- vertical slope in pursuit of an 8lb wheel of Double Gloucester cheese (which reaches speeds of up to 70mph).

The event must be one of the most iconic examples of British eccentricity.

However, British journalist and historian David McKie counsels we often get the definition of an eccentric wrong.

‘People tend to think that eccentric means unusually weird and wacky,’ he has observed. ‘That’s not the real definition: the word is derived from Latin and simply means away from the centre, away from what we think of as normal and ordinary.’

Far be it for your correspondent to get thinking too deeply, especially on a Saturday, but it’s hard not to wonder whether our inbuilt compasses as to what is ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ have deviated off course.

We stand their uncomplaining when supermarkets send us down self-checkout aisles – forced to serve ourselves goods we are paying for – or doctors’ receptionists sourly say ‘there won’t be an appointment for at least three weeks.’

We smile as cheeky blighters who haven’t given us so much as a nod nick 20 percent ‘service charge’ from us and hand over thousands in taxes that seem to benefit everybody else but those on our side of that notional centre line.

Dogs on leads long enough to lunge a racehorse around are everywhere, from cafes to clothes shops. Nowadays, it’s ‘away from the centre’ to dare believe – like small children – they should be kept at heel.

The cheese rollers of Gloucestershire weren’t the only ones out in the heatwave, with record numbers of illegal migrants taking the plunge and crossing the English Channel.

Our government should have hung their heads in shame at the irony of those boarding the dinghies for a better life at the British taxpayers’ expense via Dunkirk. Or is it ‘away from the centre’ to think there is something distasteful about these French beaches that played such a pivotal role in World War II being linked with these modern-day crossings. Off they sailed to the land of milk and honey that Britain has become.

Some label former Top Gear presenter and latter-day farming hero Jeremy Clarkson an eccentric. Whatever he is, there can be no doubting that the Yorkshireman did a thing, a very wonderful thing, when he got together the Hawkstone Farmers Choir.

Now, we haven’t watched Britain’s Got Talent since our now grown-up children were young, but a ‘phone call last weekend to say ‘are you watching’ got us tuned in for the first time in at least a decade.

Clarkson put out an appeal for farmers who could sing to provide the music for his Hawkstone beer adverts. The 30-something choir members, who all work within agriculture, have evolved from those first practice sessions into a very professional sounding (fleece gilet wearing) outfit, using the platform they have been given to help raise awareness about farming.

To have famous faces such as music mogul Simon Cowell and fellow judge Amanda Holden share their appreciation for Britain’s farmers and reflect on the challenges of the rural life, often working alone, was incredibly poignant.

‘Farming touches every single person in this country,’ Holden declared, as the choir was returned victorious in last week’s semi-final.

What music to the ears that must have been to the thousands who travelled to London to protest over the past few years at changes to taxation and other industry threats. There must have been so many dark days wondering if anybody ever listens. Somehow, Clarkson’s choir found the right note to prove that farming, as an industry, is not alone.

We will be watching tonight’s final after a busy day rounding sheep up for their annual shearing session.

Just a few months ago animal rights activists were all over the news arguing that the process is cruel to sheep.

If anybody could have seen them panting this week, as our temperatures soared to over 30 degrees, they wouldn’t begrudge them their annual haircut. Especially not if they saw the maggots that, given their favoured conditions of unshorn dirty wool, love nothing more than eating them alive.

Call it an eccentricity, but no man-made fibre (so often from far flung corners of the world) wearer will ever convince this correspondent otherwise.

But back to where we started and how wonderful to have only just learnt that the cheese rolling event in Gloucestershire is actually held ‘unofficially’ after health and safety fears caused the official competition to be cancelled back in 2010.

Just goes to show, the big cheeses don’t always win. That there is often, even if it’s away from what we think of as normal or ordinary, another way.

Sarah Todd is a journalist specialising in farming and country life. Read her weekly column in Wednesday’s edition of The Yorkshire Post.