JERSEY has long been famous for the annual Battle of Flowers. In more recent years events such as the International Air Display, the Branchage Festival, Grass Roots and, of course, Jersey Live have added strength and depth to the range of major spectacles to which Islanders and visitors can look forward.

It is now clear that the Jersey Evening Post West Show can be added to the list of seasonal attractions that help the Island to punch well above its weight in terms of entertainment.

At the weekend more than 15,000 people turned up at St Peter to see what the two-day event had to offer. Few of them can have been disappointed by the experience. Everything from the incredible aerial stunts of the freestyle motorcycle team to displays of falconry, the music and the wide range of food and drink available kept the crowds entertained and enthralled.

The scale of the show is such that it is hard to imagine that its origins were in a far more parochial activity – the Western Parishes Cattle Show. Appropriately, cattle and other livestock were still very much in evidence, but it is a tribute to the vision and skills of those who transformed a very particular occasion of quite limited interest into the show we know today.

Many of those who were responsible for the transition are still active as organisers and helpers. They and the many other people who worked so hard to ensure that the show was such a huge success deserve thanks and praise for a job well done.

All those concerned also deserve recognition for making sure that the West Show’s roots are still set firmly in rural Jersey. Although highlights such as the stunt motorcyclists no doubt draw the crowds, after people had made their way into the show field – generously made available by farmer Darren Quénault – they rapidly discovered that the snapshot of country life provided on the many stalls and in the marquees were also a source of fascination.

In these days of ever more sophisticated entertainment, the West Show proved that simple activities, such as donkey rides or messing about on straw bales for the younger generation and enjoying a pint of real ale for their seniors, are still substantial pleasures – especially if they can be pursued on a summer’s day in the Jersey countryside.