TWO childhood chums are celebrating seven decades of exhibiting at their local village show.

As villagers prepare for the 78th Milnthorpe Horticultural and Craft Show this Saturday afternoon, Mavis Robinson and Cllr Roger Bingham will be among those hoping to win prizes - as they first did as youngsters back in 1948 and 1949.

Mrs Robinson (née Gott), of Lower Rowell Farm, near Milnthorpe, shows mainly crafts, flowers and baking.

Local historian Mr Bingham, of The Smithy, Ackenthwaite, likes to exhibit vegetables and preserves such as jam, marmalade, rum butter and lemon cheese.

The friends go back a long way, having appeared in the Milnthorpe WI pantomime Cinderella at the Memorial Hall at Christmas 1947.

Mr Bingham, a long-standing parish, district and county councillor, told the Gazette his first prize at the village show was for a bookcase to house his Beatrix Potter collection. Aged six at the time, he said he has since only used a hammer to put up his runner bean frames each spring.

Mrs Robinson is pictured with Mr Bingham in her and her husband John’s garden at Rowell, which opens regularly to the public under the National Garden Scheme. Mr Bingham also opens the garden at his Ackenthwaite home for occasional local events.