It’s great that the Show must go on

“The children … danced off … toward the wonderful music and the wonderful adventure and the wonderful excitement, into the wonderful midway where there would be no parents … and they could do as they pleased.” — EB White, Charlotte’s Web GROWING up in Melbourne, this time of year was always special.

My thoughts were uncluttered by dreams of my beloved Fitzroy and footy glory on that one day in September.

I was 16 before the Lions even made the finals — and they were back in last place the following season.

But at least there was always the Show.

Long before it became known for sous-vide cooking, desserts as edible art and chefs-as-rockstars adulation — as the home of Master Chef

Australia — the Epsom Rd showgrounds in Ascot Vale had another claim to fame.

It was the must-see destination for children of all ages when the Royal Melbourne Show set up shop for its annual country-to-the-city week that offered a myriad fish-outof-water experiences for us suburban schoolkids: seeing the flashing blades of the woodchop, men in singlets, white trousers and Dunlop Volleys wielding polished axes so sharply honed you could shave with them; walking through the livestock sheds and smelling the hay (and more than a few “earthy” aromas); riding the chairlift; the produce halls with shelf after shelf of competitively preserved fruit arranged in perfect symmetry inside gleaming Fowler’s Vacola jars; the ingeniously decorated cakes; the Holden precision driving team, nightly tempting fate around the trotting track; and of course the showbags.

In my wardrobe now I have a few pieces I consider timeless and untouchable. One of them is a denim jacket.

It is not the cut or brand that makes it so, but the piece of thin red ribbon I tied on one cuff decades ago when I took my then two young daughters on a day trip to the Show.

Not all shared my belief that the adventure would go off without a hitch (it did) and that we would not get separated in the seething mass of humanity (we didn’t). Just as the girls had their clothing named, the ribbon was to identify me, my promise to my girls that even if we separated, I wouldn’t get lost for long.

That’s the kind of show and tell story that can stay with you for a long time.