My first experience was as a young sprog in 1960. I visited both trade and public shows throughout my childhood with my father and then with the Air Training Corps. Those shows gave me my love of aviation in its many guises, so much so that at the age of 20 I moved from ATC to ATC!
The shows in those days were spectacular, in '60 the Black Arrows displayed with sixteen Hunters. But now money and health and safety have turned it into a safe, expensive shadow of those noisy, pioneering shows. Very sad!