Flashback to August 1976

How about this for an idea – a big community event to bring Telford together.

That was exactly the thinking behind the staging of Telford Super Saturday, held for the first time on Saturday (of course), August 7, 1976.

You bring the family, we'll supply the fun, went the advertising. And best of all, admission was free.

Bankrolled and organised by Telford Development Corporation, the government-appointed body tasked with creating the new town of Telford, it proved a great success.

It had been intended as a one-off, but was to become an annual feature of the town's calendar.

That first event, with a range of displays and attractions, saw around 20,000 people streaming into the town park. It proved so popular that all the car parks in the vicinity of the 450-acre park at the heart of the town were filled up.

The crowds watched a seven-hour programme including freefall parachuting, a medieval tournament, and a display by the internationally famous London Irish Girl Pipe Band.

The programme ended with a colourful bang provided by what was described at the time as probably the most spectacular fireworks display ever seen in the area.

Total cost of the day was put at about £5,000 and corporation officials said afterwards that it had gone a long way to achieving its object of helping people to identify with Telford as a whole.

Chairman of the organising group was Gordon Riley, the corporation's public relations officer, who said the massive public support meant the corporation would have to consider making it a regular event.

"It was a step into the unknown for all of us. We have learnt very many valuable tips on organisational procedure," he said.

Telford Motor Cycle Club's display was unable to go ahead due to a snag over insurance, and the tail end of the programme was performed in semi-darkness.

And the schedule was unavoidably held up by the parachutists who had to delay their jump due to poor weather conditions.

The corporation continued to run the event into the 1980s, but what everyone knew was that time was running out.

That was because the corporation was due to be wound up at some point – in the 1970s a date of 1986 had been suggested for the wind-up by the then environment minister Peter Shore.

In fact the date became a movable feast creating a measure of uncertainty. The vague late 1980s was in the air, then 1989, and finally in 1986 for the first time a definite end date was set of September 1991, which is indeed when the corporation finally packed its collective bags.

What it meant was that if Telford Super Saturday was to continue, the running of it would have to be handed over to somebody else.

The last Telford Super Saturday organised by the corporation was on September 8, 1984, and thereafter it handed over the reins to a voluntary group called the Telford Society, backed by financial support from the corporation which was being reduced every year.

The plan was that by the time the corporation wound up, the show – renamed Telford Show – could be self-financing.

Sadly even with the corporation subsidy and with changes to the format and a switch to August Bank Holiday Monday, it struggled financially. The first year Telford Show was held with no subsidy at all in 1989 it made a loss, but it made a profit the following year.

However the 1991 show lost £12,500 and saw attendance drop from 17,500 to about 10,000. Faced with a financial disaster, as the society only had £7,000 in the coffers and Wrekin Council could not afford to underwrite the event, in January 1992 it was decided not to hold it again.

The show was said to have been the victim of an apparent "cultural recession'' to hit the town, coming in the wake of the Wrekin and Telford Festival being ditched after it failed to pull audiences in 1991.

What it demonstrated was the difficulty in predicting the success or failure of such events – and it can work both ways.

In May 1989 the old Wrekin Council organised an event called Telford International Day at the town park, featuring scenes from foreign countries and aiming to forge closer links between foreign industry and the local community.

The council initially predicted an attendance of between 6,000 and 8,000. In fact the weather was glorious and 50,000 turned up. Entry was free, and the upshot was that a day which had been expected to cost the council £15,000 actually cost £40,000.