Never having been the N.D.S. Show in London, I was very pleased
to be asked to go to the show with the Monklands Dahlia Society
entourage. On the morning before the show I went to give Robert
Fulton some help in securing and loading his flowers. He was already
being helped by his hard working wife Wilma. Robert’s system
for travelling is the best that I have ever seen. It was done
in sections, two tiered with each bucket firmly secured in its
compartment. I believe there were only two damaged blooms when
we reached London. Well done Robert.
Next stop Mount Vernon to the home of J. D. Semple. Here the flowers
of Doug.; Tommy Melrose; Joe Gartshore; John Jack and Andrew Semple
were all loaded. At this point maps were handed out, stopping
points arranged and even a timetable was given. There were two
cars plus the big van making the journey.
Everything went well, Glasgow to London with two stops until we
reached the suburbs. Then things began to happen - ‘U’
turns galore (where were the Police?) Later I noticed we seemed
to be passing the same place at least twice. One fellow in particular,
stood on a column, had a funny hat on his head and had his arm
in a sling. My educated friend said he had won a battle or something.
We eventually checked in at the hotel and found a parking place
for the cars. “I’ll never complain about the 60p parking
fees in Glasgow again.” The taxi driver could not find the
Westminster Hall and we had John Whyte showing him where it was.
It’s a good job that somebody has travelled before.
When we arrived at the hall Doug. and Robert had already started
to empty the van. This job completed we found a good corner and
started staging. Everything was going along fine until I noticed
that one of our group had fallen asleep. It must be hard to sleep
with a pipe in your mouth. Perhaps dreaming of First Prizes for
Christopher Taylor. Eventually we got all our exhibits up and
had a final look at the Inter-Society exhibit. We all agreed that
we had no chance - but we knew that before we left Glasgow. This
was confirmed when we returned the next day. We were placed fifth
out of eleven and we could not complain about that. Some of the
entries in this class were outstanding as they were in several
other classes in the show.
Some of our members had better results individually. Doug. Semple
won a class for mediums with Hillcrest Albino out of 28 entries
I believe. Robert Fulton won the Special Class for six different
varieties of smalls, while Tommy Melrose; Joe Gartshore; John
Jack and Andrew Semple all had tickets. “Dreams don’t
always come true.”
After my first look round I retired to a higher vantage point
to get an overall view. I wondered why part of the hall had cleared.
Then I say why. Big Tom Robbie was parading around with a Scottish
C. & D. Society Show poster wrapped around his ample waist.
I don’t know if this brought anybody to Stirling or if it
frightened them away. I noted that one seedling class had 1, 3
and 4 prizes all Barbarry varieties. They all looked really good
and the second in the class was a good variety too.
I enjoyed myself and met some very nice people who were as interested
in the dahlia as lam. Later we decided to go out for a meal and
found a rather quiet restaurant -well it was until we arrived.
The meal was good and plenty of it. One uncouth youth, when asked
“How would you like your steak, Sir” replied:- “On
the plate, lass.” I blushed for him. On returning to the
hotel we spent some time at the bar - spending all our prize money
- ha ha. After a time I decided to go to bed. Some of the boys
thought that it was because I was old but that was not true. If
my room-mate had got to bed before me, there would have been no
sleep for me. “God. What a noise he made.”
This was a very pleasant trip, very well organised by Doug. Semple
and Robert Fulton and made even better by the quality of the company.