Banbury (Bloxham) Steam Rally, (25th - 26th June, 2022)
This is one of a series of pages I have uploaded to illustrate facets of the steam rallies we have attended in the UK. Click here for the 2022 introduction and overall index.
We tend to come to Banbury most years and it would be fair to say that it has 'wobbled', with, for example, 23 engines (2017) and 36 engines (2019). This was another poor year (22 engines) although it would be easy to blame the current chill economic winds. The organisers had found it necessary to increase gate prices by 50% from £10 to £15 (advanced purchase tickets were £12.50) which may have discouraged some punters who seemed to be thinner on the ground than normal on the Saturday with occasional showers competing with breaks in the clouds. Getting more than 'roster' shots here as at many rallies depends on having a friendly sun just before, during and after the 'Grand Parade' and, alas, the ring master invited 'only photographers' into the ring for 10 minutes under the clearest patch of the day when the engines were jammed up close together and facing north up the hill... As the first one left, the clouds closed in again and not for the first time I despaired of rally officials who have no idea of what constitutes an attractive picture.
A shower of rain was coming, it would have been more than a couple of hours before the sun would have come round to the 'other side' from the morning session and it was time to cut our losses. It had not been a great day, we had been planning to go on north for the Sheffield show the next day but 10 minutes before we left home we had had a phone call to say that our overnight hostess had gone down with a Covid infection. It seems that maybe my legendary luck has run out this year. The garden and its resident cat will no doubt appreciate our extra presence.
It appears that the rally was being run on a shoestring and for next year's event, there will need to be arena entertainment and some more things to keep the punters from getting bored. Also conspicuously absent was even a single showman's engine, a traditional crowd pleaser. Alas it has always been the case that 'You have to spend money to make money.'
Choose the page you are interested in and within that, click on a thumbnail for a larger image. Then click again to return to the page.
