Roll up! Roll Up! – at a gentle trot?

AS COUNTRY FAIRS and agricultural shows go in Scotland, you can’t get posher (at least, in venue) than the Galloway Country Fair. Established in the early 2000s, it moved 14 years ago to the grounds of Drumlanrig Castle, the Dumfries-shire home of the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the richest men in the UK.

Against the backdrop of a late 17th century pink sandstone, Scottish Baroque pile, punters, both young and old, come to jump on bouncy castles, watch hawks chase their quarry, taste local fare, try their hand at catching trout or minnows, blast clay pigeons, parade their mutts and buy souvenirs in the craft tent.

These activities provide good, outdoor fun, if not a little fantasy and nostalgia, which play their part in papering over the cracks of real country life in today’s Scotland. No display of picturesque Clydesdales with flowing manes and fetlocks or processions of puttering Massey Fergusson tractors can hide the fact that much of the countryside today is a people-less desert, due to global warming, over-priced housing, agricultural automation and the fact that huge agro-corporations are taking over.

On a reservedly hopeful note, some names of the Fair’s sponsors indicate that there is a concern for the rural environment. Galloway Country Fair’s main sponsors are renewable energy companies based in Dumfries & Galloway such as Glenmuckloch, an energy storage firm and CWP Energy (the main sponsor), but at risk of echoing the words of Donald Trump, the price paid for wind energy is desecration by whirring turbines of some of the most beautiful and solitary parts of SW Scotland.

For my part, as a reporter of the visual arts, Drumlanrig Castle is forever etched in my memory as a scene worthy of a whodunnit, although no murder took place. On August 27, 2003, two men drove up to the castle and, after threatening the caretaker, prised with an axe from a wall a 500 year old painting, “The Madonna of the Yarnwinder” by Leonardo da Vinci and worth £ 40 million. The painting was found unharmed four years later and is now held by the National Galleries of Scotland.

So, along with beer, skittles, prize bulls, candy floss and local produce, we can rest assured that all’s well with the world. The duke eventually got his Leonardo back and those who already own next year’s diary, can pencil in the weekend of 14th and 15th August for Galloway Country Fair 2027.

MARY GLADSTONE