The 34th Haddenham Steam Rally followed the trend of the previous year with fine dry weather and probably the best crowds of the last decade to provide a weekend of superb attractions for the steam and vintage enthusiast in this corner of East Anglia. For the stationary engine men, this year marked the passing of Les Martin and a tribute was placed as an addendum to the programme for the people who knew him in the section.

As usual, there were some nice rare engines to be seen including Gray, Little Jumbo, MacLeod, Jaeger, Wilton, Benz & Spol and Ruston Hornsby open cranks. There was also a fair bit of working equipment this year with examples of bench grinder, corn mills, swarf separator, water pumps, generators, sheep shearing sets and vacuum pumps for milking.

The steam engine section offered what seemed to be representative makes of most types of engine with examples of Fowler, Burrell, Foster, Garrett, Foden, Marshall, Aveling & Porter, Ransomes Sims & Jefferies, Ruston proctor, Clayton & Shuttleworth, Wallis & Steevens, Tuxford, Merryweather and Sentinel. However, there were not quite so many showmen's engines around the beer tent on Saturday night and the atmosphere seemed a little flat compared to some previous years.

The vehicle sections were full to capacity over the weekend with some great commercials in particular to look at. A selection of Dennis, Morris & ford lorries of the 1930s were particularly pleasing and there were also some debutees in the shape of Phillips & Sons ERF and Jack Richard's Bedford O-type amongst the regulars. The selection of cars seemed more interesting this year and the motorcycles offered the usual high quality selection you expect of Haddenham.

Tractors continue to be split into two sections as last year, and were in the main, the same selection that has been seen at other local shows this year. One exception was the John Deere Lanz crawler in unusual yellow livery, which I hadn't seen before. Elsewhere, working demonstrations of wood sawing, threshing & baling, milling and stone crushing attracted an interested crowd near to the entrance and exit gates.

There were various bygone displays dotted around the site including cast iron implement seats and nameplates, petrol cans, blacksmith's & wheelwright's tools, WWII bygones, railwayana, matchbox memorabilia and a miscellaneous display from the Brown family in the marquee. However, as last year, some of the model stalls were pushed close to the Heavy Horse ring behind the steam engines but in my opinion, even there is preferable to the dead zone near the top lake.

The extensive fair is always an asset to this rally and this year was no exception with examples of steam gallopers, Chair-o-planes, Paratrooper, Twister and the infamous Wall of Death amongst the attractions. In addition, there were 4 or 5 decent sized fair organs scattered around the site to entertain those of a more sedate disposition.

The catering seemed much expanded this year with two different fish and chip trailers, also two different burger & bacon rolls trailers, Terry Roughton's hog-roast, John's Seafood stall, a Thai food trailer, donuts and Norah's Suffolk Fudge sweetshop. The trade stands and craft stalls were pretty much the same as last year but with more people, less willingness to haggle. All in all, though, a good year for Haddenham and its organisers.