Andrew Arbuckle: The end of a colourful era as prime meat show gets the chop

I am sure that, when people read the news that there would be no prime livestock competitions at Stoneleigh this December, more than a few thoughts would slip back to the years when London faced an annual invasion of farmers for the Smithfield show.

A visit to the metropolis at the beginning of December each year seemed so secure and such a vital date in the agricultural calendar that few would have thought it now seems to have hit the buffers.

The Royal Smithfield Club required the link with the machinery manufacturers to get the sums to add up and, when the tractor makers and equipment suppliers decided they would get more benefit from attending specialist events or going to European machinery shows, the London venue for Smithfield was a non-starter.

There will be no more tales of wild countrymen wandering around parts of the West End late at night, their dress and demeanour identifying them as out of place as feral foxes dumped in the countryside; nor of Northumbrian farmers deciding they had had enough of London and taking a taxi back to the north-east of England.

A few will remember how the tabloids decided to run a campaign to "save" one overall beef champion from ending up hanging from the meat hooks in the window of some butcher.

It is also possible that some might recall when the best pair of prime lambs in the country were sold to an unknown buyer and only later did the press find out that his intention was not to have top-quality lamb chops but instead for the lambs to play a leading role in his children's nativity play. But those London days are long gone and - following a sojourn a few years ago in Shepton Mallet, where it is possible some visitors may still be lost in deepest Somerset - it did appear as if the event had reached its natural home at Rase's base camp at Stoneleigh.

Last year, about 7,000 visitors were attracted to what was now called the AgriLive Smithfield and all seemed set to carry on with this year's event.

It seems incredible that the Rase, whose lofty intentions are to promote all aspects of agriculture, seems unable to put on a show. Last year it cancelled the Royal Show, citing massive losses from the 2008 event - these losses are revealed in its latest posted set of accounts with a minus figure of 800,000.

The Rase has also lost the Dairy Event to the National Exhibition Centre, and so questions have to be asked about its competency.Perhaps its only hope of salvation will come if the proposed new London to Birmingham rail line goes through its premises and it receives oodles of compensation.

The cancellation of AgriLive Smithfield does raise other questions. I have no doubt the exhibitors are wondering if they will get their entry cash back. That may happen, but exhibitors know they will not get back any investment they have made in buying potential champions.

It is too late to organise another fatstock event, but there will be beneficiaries from the demise of the show.

I understand that entries for the Scottish Winter Fair have been boosted, and that is good news. Other parts of the UK will also see their fatstock competitions taking more prominence.

But I wonder where the Royal Smithfield Club - which has been in existence since 1798 and whose raison d'etre is the promotion of prime meat - will go from here.