THIS year's delighted Okehampton Show president has achieved a unique double.
'They asked me to be president again this year so that I would have a show — because last year I was president without a show!' said Jeffe Cunliffe.
Unfortunately, in 2001 the foot and mouth crisis meant this annual event, like so many others, had to be cancelled.
'I accepted the invitation for this year with the greatest pleasure. For me, after all the time I have been involved in the show, this is the greatest accolade I could have.'
Jeffe, a sprightly 84-year-old with an infectious sense of humour, has always been grateful to the town that made him feel so welcome when he first arrived, back in the 1940s.
'I come from Bootle on Merseyside. I came here as a soldier in 1942 and I end up president of the Okehampton Show. This, to me, is everything.'
'I have seen them come and go. There was Viscount Lambert, Lord Clinton . . . then it was colonels, majors and even captains — now its going to be Jeffe Cunliffe!'
It was while stationed at Okehampton that he met his wife-to-be, Peggy, and decided to settle and spend the rest of his life here.
During the war he served in Africa and Italy.
'I finished the war and got that all fixed up. I was demobbed in 1945.
'I got married at All Saints' Church and have been a prisoner ever since — but I haven't asked for parole because I'm very satisfied with the situation!' says Jeffe, his eyes flashing a mischievous twinkle.
A plumber by trade, he first worked for Courtney Bolt, the present mayor's father, and it was Courtney who first got him involved in the agricultural show.
Jeffe says he was once told he could never be show president because he had not been involved in farming. But he responded that he had been 'at the hard end' because he once had a job which involved regularly delivering hefty sacks of animal feed to farms.
He began helping out at the showground because he saw it as a way of putting something back into the community.
'I was so grateful for coming to Okehampton and being received as I was.
'I was looking for something to repay the great hospitality that was given to me when I came here,' says Jeffe.
He remembers once bringing the Devon Yeomanry TA team to the showground and giving a display of riding army motorcycles.
'The team went on to win the British Army Championships for trial riding. We were the only TA team that ever won this championship — it had always been won by regular troops. We certainly upset the apple cart by winning.'
Jeffe, who has been involved in the Okehampton Show since the early 50s, could not be happier than to be its president.
'I think it is a marvellous show. The organisation that goes into it is terrific.'
He believes that both the show and the Ten Tors are the two events that bring in the biggest number of people to Okehampton.
Jeffe says he is particularly grateful to Simon Essex who has offered to loan him a two-seater golf buggy to make it easier for him and his wife to spend the day touring around the showground meeting everybody.