What a difference a year can make to a show. After suffering at the hands of the weather last year, the scorching temperatures brought out the people to support the event in 2005. With a more compact layout which kept people around or within sound of the ring, and a small grant from The Big Lottery Fund to help celebrate the end of hostilities of WWII, which helped secure it's future, Holbeach is now firmly back in the rally calendar.

The bygones tent had two displays of a WWII theme, with memorabilia displayed by Mr & Mrs Jessop and wartime rations and other items of interest from committee members Mr & Mrs Woollard, responsible for the Lottery funding. Supporting this theme, the stationary engine section had engines that were available or used in wartime, including Lister, Fowler, Petter, Ruston and of course the Wolseley WD series. There were fewer absentees this year, but still a few who booked in but didn't let us know they wouldn't be coming.

The agricultural theme this year was tillage equipment, which was meant to be cultivators of different types rather than ploughs. This was perhaps not as exciting as in previous years, but was brought together at short notice once the running of the event was confirmed. This was supported by a mainly static display of horticultural equipment including a Wrights of Holbeach snatch-hoe adapted to fit a Barford Atom Junior. The tractor entries were undoubtedly down this year but the rumours of cancellation, so easily started but so hard to stop, played a part in this.

Interspersed with the vintage equipment were various bits of modern equipment from Doubleday's and King family farms, with examples of Challenger, John Deere, Fendt and Massey Ferguson, together with various bits of modern tillage equipment. Thanks also go to local tractor owners and members of the Flywheel Club who provided tireless marshalling support over the weekend and in the days before and after the show.

Ring entertainment had a different slant to it this year with an enthralling display of commercial vehicle recovery by local firm Tears, who dedicated three vehicles and a team of 5 men on both days, to firstly lie down and then turn upright an articulated tanker unit. The only problem with this was that the vehicle was left in the middle of the ring throughout the weekend, which perhaps spoilt the visual aspect a little. An innovative item in the programme was a timed "race" between two teams to convert a 1940s hay rake from its narrow travelling guise to its wide field profile and then back again, along the lines of the gun-carriage teams at the Royal Tournament.

To conclude, a trio of full-size steam, rare Leyland and Peiper veteran cars, some superbly restored tractors, a lovely small van in a bright and breezy ice-lolly livery, a good selection of larger commercial vehicles, and as a teenage girl said outside the gate on her mobile as she tried to get her friends to come down, "there's a lot here to see and do, you won't be disappointed." Here's hoping for more of the same in 2006.