The London Boat Show has seen a few changes over the years. The first boat show was the Motor and Marine Exhibition, run with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) in 1914 at the Agricultural Halls in Islington.

The first National Boat Show was staged in 1954/55 at the Empire Hall, Olympia, running over the New Year from December 30 to January 8, 1955.

The Daily Express also made its entrance at this time, turning the show into the London International Boat Show. That partnership ran until 1988.

The National Boat Show had to share the Olympia hall with Bertram Mills' Circus. And yes, the circus staged its Christmas show at the same time.

Divided from the boat show by only a heavy canvas curtain, visitors looked at the boats to a background of elephants trumpeting and lions roaring. Plus, of course, attendant odours.

The circus eventually proved to be too much to bear, so the boat show decided to move a mile or so down the road to Earls Court, where the magnificent Olympic swimming pool enabled boats to be seen afloat. And the incredible headroom allowed boats to be fully rigged.

According to National Boat shows (NBS) attendance rocketed to 320,000 and business to the tune of £5m was done.

The show has seen a succession of famous faces performing the opening ceremony. The Rt Hon Edward Heath MP (1971), Sir Max Aitken (1973), Clare Francis (1977), the Rt Hon Mrs Margaret Thatcher (1979), Morecombe & Wise (1981), Jimmy Saville (1982), Tommy Steele (1984), Jim Davidson (1991), Anthea Turner (1995), Jill Dando (1996) and Carol Smillie (1998).

And it was while she was opening the show that Mrs Thatcher was persuaded to ride in a Bosun's Chair, displaying her knickers to the world: a shot that was immediately snapped up by Private Eye .Among the Royals who have opened the show are HRH Princess Alexandra, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Princess Royal.

Edward Heath's three-day week, brought about by Heath's struggle with Mr Scargill and his miners - a fight Heath was to lose - almost closed the 1973 boat show as well.

NBS says once it had been decided to run the show - with the rest of the country saving electricity on the three-day week - the show's exhibition manager managed to persuade the Ministry of Trade that running the show with only half the hall lights on would use no more than having full lighting on for two three day periods.

Electricity was banned before the show, so stands had to be built up under car headlights, with painters holding a paintbrush in one hand and a torch in the other.

Many exhibitors who were not allowed power to their stands used battery powered lamps and even portable generators to keep the show going.

Other snippets from the time - the 1964 show saw more than half the boats built in FRP and during the snow-hit 1987 show, one bleak day saw just 120 visitors through the turnstiles and exhibitors played cricket in the aisles.

In 1965 the show saw even fewer visitors for a while on one day, when the show was closed to the public for an hour while The Fab Four toured Earls Court, even going for a rowing boat trip across the pool. And I bet they didn't even pay to get in.

The success of the show during those times was enhanced when it became the first national exhibition to have carpeted aisles.

And, of course, the Earls Court boat shows were famous for their central features. Over the years we've had shows with themes from inland boating to the Channel Islands, Hong Kong to London Chelsea Harbour and a wide range of activities from high diving through to water skiing.

This year's show will see the return of the central feature - something that the industry has been yearning for ever since they stopped a few years back.

This year, NBS says The Magic Returns, with the central feature based around a life-sized Turkish harbour.