ANYONE who's ever been at the sharp end of organising a Three Counties Show might consider five years in the SAS to be good training, although Tony Halls took the groundwork rather father than that.

Altogether, he did 25 years as a professional soldier, including 10 with the Parachute Brigade, as well as the five with The Regiment.

He was a garrison sergeant major and a regimental quartermaster, used to running things and organising people and equipment.

All this wealth of experience came in useful the weekend the scooter boys came to town.

Tony had joined the Three Counties Agricultural Society in 1979 on the finance side, but it wasn't long before his ability as an organiser saw him put in charge of running the 70-acre showground and its accompanying 200-acre estate.

So he took the brunt of it when an international scooter rally decided to converge on Malvern one summer in the early 80s.

They'd originally decided they were going to meet on Malvern Common, but the police were having kittens and asked us if we could have them here, so at least they'd be in a confined area, Tony explained.

They agreed, but it was an absolute nightmare. Probably the worst weekend he's had since he's been here.

There were thousands of them. There were scooters whizzing everywhere and they got everywhere.

We found them sleeping and smoking in the stables. They were just all over the place like a rash.

And, to make it worse, we had some Hell's Angels turn up, who prowled around the perimeter of the camp trying to pick a fight with the scooter people's security. I think I aged 10 years in that weekend!

Separating warring biking factions wasn't what Tony Halls signed up to the TCAS for and, to be fair, it's not the norm.

I must add we've had many motorbike events here since and they've gone off perfectly, he confided.

He joined the Army in the 1950s as a boy soldier, but freely admits he wasted the early years.

I soon found out that, if you were good at sport, you didn't get asked to do much else!"

However, sitting one day reading Reveille, the magazine full of "men's material", he came across an article about the SAS.

"It was 1956 and no one had heard about the SAS then. They were still a very secret organisation. But they sounded just what I wanted. I thought 'Wow'. I had to be there.

So he applied for Selection and, of his batch of 100, was one of only half-a-dozen to get through. Pretty soon, he found himself in Malaya, fighting the terrorist threat.

But I was actually more worried about the bees and hornets than I was about the enemy. We used to move through the jungle in four-man patrols and I was at the back, tail-end Charlie.

"The way it seemed to work was that the first man in the patrol disturbed the hornets' nest, the second and third stirred them up and then the fourth, which was me, got stung!"

Nevertheless, it was for his administration rather than shooting or parachuting skills that the TCGS gave Tony a job when he left the Army in 1979, after 25 years service.

Now, after 23 years organising things on the Malvern showground, he's retiring at the age of 64.

His official title is showground general manager although, for 15 months, he filled the chief executive's role, following the death of Lyn Downes and the arrival of Chris Milne.

This period included the bicentennial show of the society, the organising of which is among his fondest memories.

When I came, the showground was only used on 10 days of the year, for the Three Counties Show, a horse show, dog show and a caravan rally. Now, there are 120 shows each year with more than 260 days usage.

"There's also been a lot of capital investment, such as the cattle and sheep halls at £100,000 each and the £250,000 Severn Hall, which serves the members and for various functions. Things are a lot different now.

Tony's job has also seen him masterminding the planning of the hundreds of trade stands that adorn the main events on the site, the Three Counties Show, the Spring Gardening Show and the Autumn Show.

It needs sharp wits to be one step ahead of the more crafty traders, who'll encroach on to their neighbour's plot, given half a chance.

This is where his garrison sergeant major experience comes in handy.

But, when even that failed to move one intransigent, Tony simply turned up at night with a gang of staff, picked up the trader's 20ft square tent and carried it 100 yards across the site to its proper place.

Everything, including hundreds of soft toys, was rearranged exactly in place and, the following morning, the owner said he didn't even know his stand had been moved. The stealth of the SAS had triumphed again.

Tony's now retiring to the palatial surroundings of Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, where his wife Elizabeth is administrator and they don't have spontaneous scooter rallies.