RETIRED miner Bill Lamb celebrated his birthday by serving up the biggest onion in the National Onion Championships.

Weighing in at 13lb 12oz, the whopper beat off other entries from across the country at Harrogate's Autumn Flower Show.

Mr Lamb, of Easington Colliery, County Durham, fell short of the world record, set at the Harrogate show in 1997 by Mel Ednie, from Fife, Scotland, whose entry topped 15lbs 3oz.

Mr Lamb, 64, who grew the onion on his allotment, said: "The secret of the success is that it is my own strain of onion."

The three-day event, at the Great Yorkshire Showground, which ended last night, attracted 37,385 visitors, beating last year's record of 36,313 and the 2002 figure of 33,990.

Announcing the third successive record, show director Roger Brownbridge said: "There must be a limit as to how long we can keep announcing a record. But generally there has been a steady growth over the past few years and the trend is continuing."

Mr Brownbridge said the secret of the show's success, despite mixed weather, was the fact that 80 per cent of it was now "weather independent".

Meanwhile, its organisers - the North of England Horticultural Society - has just secured a new ten-year contract to hold the show on the 22-acre site, with its 8,000 parking spaces, for a further ten years.

The present contract with the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, owners of the showground, runs out in 2006. It means the show is secured on the famous site until 2016.

Final approval for the new contract is to be confirmed by the horticultural society's council in November.