An early Bribbaree Show, part of a tradition reaching its centenary in 2026. Photo: Caldwell family collection/Edwina Mason.
“Bribbaree’s first show, held last Thursday, was a great success, and it has encouraged the committee to proceed with its programme for the future.”
The Grenfell Record made that modest prediction on Monday 18 October 1926, four days after about 700 people gathered for Bribbaree’s inaugural show.
It proved remarkably accurate. The thought that their new show would still be running a century later would probably have blown the first committee’s collective mind.
On Saturday 3 October, the Hilltops village of Bribbaree is turning out to celebrate 100 years since the gates opened on that bright spring day.
The formula that would carry the show through its first century was there from the beginning: bring the district together, display its livestock, produce, cooking and handiwork, then add enough competition and oddity to keep everybody interested.
The inaugural show delivered exactly that.
The weather was ideal and the roads were good, although rain the previous day was thought to have reduced the crowd.
Visitors watched foot races and hunters, admired flowers and needlework, and saw women driving nails and cars playing musical chairs.
The prize list ranged from the practical to the peculiar.
Mrs TC West took honours for a plum pudding containing butter and an iced rainbow cake. TP Downey showed the best fleece.
Mrs Steele Caldwell judged the cooking. Mrs S Caldwell – possibly the same woman – won prizes for a novelty pincushion, roses, geraniums and the champion fox terrier.
And Miss G Warren won musical chairs for cars while Grace Warren and Miss A Langridge tied in the nail-driving competition.
The families entering the show were often the same families running it.
WP Downey led the first committee, with TC West and JW Byrne as vice-presidents. Bauer, Cruise, Carr, Sweeney, Johnson, Spring, Rush, Perkins and Crisp were also among those doing the work.
For many, that service became generational.
Downey, Carr, West, Bauer and Sweeney recur among the society’s presidents and life members, with four members of the West family serving as president over the century.
The Bribbaree Pastoral, Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Association had been formed in 1924, but much of its history was lost in 1981 when the house containing its records was destroyed by fire.
Local families have since helped recover copies of nearly every schedule from 1927 onwards.
They show how quickly the event grew.
By 1950, The Grenfell Record was calling Bribbaree the, “Best One-Day Show in the South-West”.
The silver jubilee show attracted a record crowd and entries ranging from the exceptional to the eccentric.
J McGee’s Mark Radium equalled the showground high-jump record at six feet six inches.
HJ Moran collected four sheep championships, while C Whitechurch showed the grand champion ram and swept the three Merino fleece divisions and Charles Whitechurch also won two wheat classes.
Thomas Hunter demonstrated useful versatility by winning both green wheaten hay and grapefruit.
Inside the pavilion, Mrs Claude Bolte’s blue-and-silver jubilee cake was covered in scallops, intricate webbing and tiny roses.
Other competitors tackled an afternoon tea tray for two, a suet plum pudding, a peg bag made from a sugar bag and the daintiest pair of scanties.
Only the merry-go-round failed to perform. Its vehicle became bogged and, once it was freed, the operator decided there was no longer time to assemble the ride.
The children got donkeys instead.
That same practical spirit also shaped the grounds.
Today Bribbaree may have the best little showground in the west, but it was built one working bee at a time by generations of volunteers who mowed, painted, repaired yards, carted soil, laid pipes and dealt with whatever threatened to stop the gates opening.
At Bribbaree, that work is not forgotten.
The names of those who did it remain above doors and etched on trophies presented each show day.
The West name is built into the showground through the West Wing, while the Pat Potbury Pavilion remembers the former treasurer, fundraiser and honorary life member who drove improvements across Bribbaree.
Silverware bears names such as Sharrock alongside Trevor Curtis, Don McGregor, Ray Noakes, Charlie Whitechurch, Garth Holland, Max Baker, Sharon Yerbury, Shirley Trudgett, Jessie Crowe, John Trudgett, KF Schiller and Noel Brennan.
Each year, those trophies bring the show’s past into the present.
For the centenary, the committee, headed by president Matt Hunter, has extended that work, searching high and low for missing records, photographs and memories.
Families returned to cupboards, photograph albums and boxes of keepsakes, emerging with schedules, photographs, newspaper clippings and stories now gathered into a memorabilia slideshow for the pavilion (and for sale!).
But Bribbaree’s history won’t merely be displayed this year – it’ll be put back to work in a centenary program built around livestock, produce, cooking and handiwork – all served with generous sides of competition and eccentricity.
The Farmer Showcase invites exhibitors to arrange the best of their paddock and garden in one container, although plastic is strictly forbidden. Even produce must observe presentation standards.
The cooking section moves from plain scones, pikelets and the farmer’s lunchbox to contests capable of damaging reputations.
The men’s champion chocolate cake carries $300 for first place, while $150 awaits the best women’s sponge. Packet mixes are permitted, but the entrant must at least turn on the oven.
Decorated cakes receive another concession: the cake may be bought, but its decoration must be the exhibitor’s work.
Mrs Bolte’s elaborate 1950 winner therefore has nothing to fear from a supermarket sponge wearing somebody else’s icing.
There are no such shortcuts in the AgShows NSW Rich Fruit Cake Competition, where the recipe is prescribed, decorations are banned, the cake must stand no higher than 57 millimetres and the judge will cut it in half.
The Moonbucca Trophy awaits the survivor.
Then the schedule loosens its collar.
There are classes for the best collection of weeds, a photograph of farming activities under the theme “Bogged” and a centenary-themed AI-created picture.
Younger exhibitors can enter a decorated or dressed hardboiled egg, the biggest gum leaf and a painted or decorated “small rock friend”.
Scarecrows will be mounted on hay bales, dachshunds and Jack Russells will race for $250, and tractors must be at least 30 years old before they are allowed to pull.
Antique engines will cough and splutter while giving the horses an unscheduled test of concentration.
The Bribbaree Show Cycling Classic offers a 100-kilometre Centenary route, a 70-kilometre Classic and the shorter 39-km Cruisy ride through Hilltops, Weddin and Bland shires.
There will also be a centenary 100-yard dash, giving metric measurement the day off, plus woodchopping, yard dogs, sheep yarding, horse events, a hilarious farmers’ challenge, tug-of-war and the return of the grand parade.
For all the competition, Bribbaree Show has always doubled as a family reunion, the October long weekend bringing former residents back, often with children and grandchildren.
It’s the one day each year when old neighbours, schoolmates and extended families can expect to find one another in the same place.
The catching up continues long after the last horse leaves the showring, with the bar traditionally packed late into the night.
Young’s singing shearer and Australian Idol runner-up Luke Dickens will perform there from 6 pm before fireworks close the show at 7:30 pm.
Bribbaree makes it look slick, but the system is wonderfully old-fashioned: find a relative, divide the jobs, get ’em done and open the gates.
That’s how a village puts on a show for 100 years.
Original Article published by Edwina Mason on About Regional.
