Despite the strong wind and heavy rain, Churches Together in Cornwall played a significant part in this year’s Royal Cornwall Show.

At the Eve of Show Service on Wednesday 6 June, Bishop Tim commissioned the show chaplains and Revd Steve Wild preached a motivating sermon in which he pointed out the tremendous level of service provided by Christians across Cornwall. He said that this fact was reflected in the Churches Together presence and activities at the Royal Cornwall Show and he encouraged Christians there to witness their faith simply by “being themselves”.

The Bodmin and Trigg Minor Deanery Choir entertained the crowd in the grandstand; while the St Minver Silver Band accompanied the singing with its usual inimitable gusto.

Then the weather intervened…

“Thursday was an interesting day!” commented Shelley Porter, a key player in the show team. “We arrived to find a wet tent interior after heavy rainfall overnight, and eventually the very high winds and driving rain led to an evacuation of the marquee for all of Thursday afternoon for safety reasons. Apparently, to use the technical jargon, the tent was ‘flexing’ alarmingly!”

However, indomitable spirits prevailed, and by Friday morning everything in the Churches Tent was back to normal and seemingly busier than ever – with an estimated total of 2,000 cups of tea, coffee or squash served along with 150 ‘mocktails’ during the course of the show!

Elsewhere on the showground, in the Wedding Marquee, thanks to very hard work by Melva and Brian McQuillen, the Church Wedding Stand stole the show in dramatic style and proved a stunning welcome to couples considering their wedding plans. It really did feel like walking up the aisle!

Meanwhile, in the BBC Radio Cornwall marquee, Shaunna Harvey and Lois Wild manned the Poverty Forum stand, reminding the many thousands of visitors there that life is not all a bed of roses for everyone in the county … in fact, some have no bed at all.

Finally, this year saw the Truro Cathedral team venture onto the showground too as they introduced show-goers to the second phase of the Inspire Cornwall vision and the latest range of merchandise from the Cathedral Shop, including a new CD recording from the choir, entitled A Year at Truro.