Credit munch ... is the perfect partnership of red onion and leek under threat?
Is there any area of life that hasn't been hit by the credit crunch? The latest victim of the UK's economic downturn is apparently giant vegetables. Alongside 100% mortgages and family holidays abroad, the competition to find the world's largest leek and heaviest onion has also been scrapped this year.
Organisers of the contest, which has been taking place in Ashington, Northumberland for 28 years, told the Newcastle Journal they had been forced to cancel next month's event because they couldn't be sure they would sell enough beer to cover their costs.
One organiser, Dick Atkinson, said:
Petrol, utility and food bills are going up. People haven't got a bottomless pit of money and it is hitting drinking. Pubs are closing every day and a lot of clubs are struggling.
It could be a cunning ruse on a quiet August day to raise the profile of giant-leek growing and find a sponsor for the show (and it has at least achieved the first of those). And, reading between the lines, declining interest from the public seems to be just as much to blame as what's going on in the economy.
But while the credit crunch is persuading more of us to grow our own veg, the future of giant specimens seems to be grim. Grower Bill Rutherford, who started the show, said the leek world was "shattered" by the cancellation and warned ominously:
I don't think leek growing can recover from this.
So another unexpected victim of the credit crunch bites the dust. Let's hope the economy has picked up by next summer, so Gloucestershire's annual cheese rolling contest does not suffer a similar fate.
