Rex Curtis remembered at Royal Cornwall Show 2026 with engine start

Royal Cornwall Show 2026 will remember Rex Curtis when engines start up at this year’s show. Curtis of Roche died on May 12, aged 83, after more than 50 years at the heart of the event’s Vintage Section.

Organisers said he was already helping run the show “long before many of us first walked through the gates.” His work ran through organising, stewarding and keeping standards high, and he was often seen driving across the fields in his buggy at the showground.

Rex Curtis and the Vintage Section

Curtis was a Cornish vintage enthusiast and a longtime Royal Cornwall Show volunteer. That role made him a familiar sight at the showground over many years, tied to the section that organisers described as iconic.

The remembrance comes at the point when engines start up today at this year’s Royal Cornwall Show, placing his name at the centre of the moment that opens that part of the event. For people who knew him through the Vintage Section, the tribute connects directly to the work he did across the fields, not only to the age he reached.

May 12 and the showground

His death on May 12 at 83 leaves the show with a clear point of recognition for a volunteer who organizers said was helping long before many of them first entered the gates. The wording they chose points to a contribution that stretched across generations of the show’s own staff and volunteers.

What follows today is simple: the engines start, and the show remembers the man who helped keep that part of it running. For those who came to know the Vintage Section through him, that makes the tribute part of the event itself, not an add-on to it.