THE stark reality of the foot-and-mouth crisis was plain to see yesterday - in the gaping emptiness of what was once its major showcase.

It should have been the first day of the premier event in the north's agricultural calendar, the massive Great Yorkshire Show.

Its sprawling home, on the edge of Harrogate, should have been teeming with life - with thousands of livestock entries and tens of thousands of people.

Instead, the pens and enclosures were empty, the avenues bereft of people and the exhibition halls were echoingly empty.

And instead of the teeming thousands, the showground played host to several hundred school children taking part in a primary schools' Countryside Day.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were among those due to be there yesterday, to officially open a new £2.25m exhibition hall.

Instead, the opening will now take place tomorrow in quiet little ceremony involving show officials and members of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society.

The Great Yorkshire Show, which dates back to 1838, previously fell victim to foot-and-mouth in 1952, when cattle, sheep, pig and goat classes had to be called off.