Surprise proposal delights audience

Thrills, excitement and romance were all in abundance at Valley View Summer Concert and Air Display on Saturday.

Exciting thrills were always expected, but romance entered the picture when Dominic Higgs asked Rose Smith to marry him.

He popped the question on stage, where he had called the unsuspecting Rose.

A keen member of the Leane’s Gallipoli Trench project, Dominic was still in trench uniform and fell to one knee as his intended arrived on stage, sending her into a gale of astonished giggles.

He offered her a “temporary” engagement ring fashioned from copper wire, with a promise she could choose the ring herself.

Rose accepted his offer to thunderous applause from the delighted audience, then the show went on.

Even bigger news announced during the evening concert was that Valley View will not be held next year, it will instead become a biennial event and next be held in 2017.

Valley View chairman Ron Hayward said the change would eliminate competition with Busselton Aerofest, already held biennially.

“Two events so close together made it more difficult to attract participants, budgeting for one major event makes it much easier for the pilots,” he said.

Busselton Aero Club members are understood to be delighted by the Valley View announcement.

That capped off a day of non-stop excitement, with amazing aerobatics, low level fly-pasts, and daring Jurien Bay skydivers.

On the ground there were displays of horsemanship by members of the Third Light Horse re-enactment troop, who travelled from South Australia just to be part of Valley View.

As expected, guided tours of the historically correct recreation of Leane’s Trench, which was taken and held at Gallipoli in 1915 by WA’s 11th Battalion, were popular all day.

Members of the 11th Battalion Living History Unit, all perfectly garbed, led visitors through the trench as artificial smoke drifted across the battleground and special effects explosions rocked the air.

Patrons who stayed on for the evening concert rocked into the night with the Moresby Rangers, interrupted only by those big news announcements and proposals, of course.