‘GIVE it some welly’ and become a world record holder — a prospect that proved tempting as showgoers queued up around the main ring on Thursday afternoon.

The show’s committee decided to mix things up this year and try their hand at breaking a Guinness World Record — not an easy feat!

The attempt was supported by Mole Valley Farmers with boots donated by Muckboots. Dumpy bags overflowed with brightly coloured wellies and entrants were herded into the main ring, via a sheep pen, 50 at a time, after being presented with their individual welly and raffle ticket, which offered the chance to win a prize of up to £100.

There was anticipation as the clock struck two and 200, 300…400 people entered the ring. To break the world record more than 636 people needed to simultaneously throw their welly into the air and a call was put out over the tannoy to entice more people into the ring. While they waited, the crowd was entertained by Magic Martin who got everyone involved in a surprisingly well-executed ‘welly Mexican wave’ and rendition of ‘Baby Shark’ — with the young entrants leading the way.

The atmosphere was palpable as everyone prepared themselves, taking a few practice swings — with only a few accidentally letting go ahead of time.

The count continued to rise until the main ring was full to capacity. With 800 wellies at the ready the record attempt could begin. Although they had enough welly wangers the team were still cautious — providing demonstrations of ‘how best to wang your welly’ and reminding people not to cross the red and white line stretched out around the field because: “We only want to do this once!”

After the town crier of Holsworthy, Roger Dunstan, read out a proclamation, the microphone was handed over to Holsworthy’s Portreeve Robert Painter who counted everybody down from ten.

Cheers and whoops were heard as everyone simultaneously hurled their welly into the air. They had done it — or had they?

Well, the answer is no. There had been a miscommunication. Everyone thought they had to throw on ‘one’ when in actual fact a ‘hooter’ was to signal the welly wang. Everyone rushed into the ring to recollect their welly as the Portreeve announced “Let’s try that again — and this time throw your welly on the hooter!”

Putting that down as a practice run, everybody felt confident their second attempt would be a success and to the committee’s relief it was. A kaleidoscope of coloured wellies rained from the sky as 796 were hurled by young and old alike. This time the crowd’s cheers were even louder and everyone left the ring, after being counted once again for prosperity, with a smile on their face and a sense of achievement.

Recordings of the attempt will now be sent off for verification, so fingers — and toes — crossed that the world record for welly wanging is held by the Holsworthy & Stratton Agricultural Show.

A lot of hard work went into organising the record attempt, which was the brainchild of show committee member Lisa Lucas, from Bridgerule.

Ian Rolinson, member of the show committee and commercial business manager for Mole Valley Farmers Holsworthy store says: “To ensure we met the Guinness World Record criteria, the event was run like a military operation, with every single one of the participants counted into the arena before the throw and counted out again following it. The whole thing was filmed by Mole Valley Farmers and this video has been sent to the Guinness Book of Record to be analysed. To our reckoning we had four people disqualified, but this still left 796 throwers.

“We are not quite sure when we will hear the official decision one way or another, but on the day we the committee were definitely of the opinion that that we had achieved the new world record!”

Show secretary Rosie Ireland said the hard work had paid off though and the committee was pleased with the outcome.

She said: “Our Welly Wang World Record attempt was successful, the final number after official adjudication was 796 people, absolutely smashing the current 636 record. We still need to send the video footage to Guinness World Records for them to make it completely official. I would like to thank Muckboots and Mole Valley for their support with this, have done it. All 800 wellies will now be donated to charity to go to the people in the world who need them the most.”

The boots have been taken to Mole Valley Farmers’ Holsworthy store, to be paired up and sorted, before being collected by a member of Launceston Rotary Club. They have been in contact with the Refugee Support Group and the Wellingtons will be exported to help people in Africa.