DOYEN of racing drivers Stirling Moss will act out every little boy's dream at the 35th Great Dorset Steam Fair.

Sir Stirling will become an engine driver on the Saturday of the five-day event at Tarrant Hinton which begins on August 27.

Steam yachts will also be making an appearance after a ten-year absence - they are like the old-fashioned fair-ground swing-boats but they take up to 50 people. And 93-year-old Ron Taylor is is back with his boxing and wrestling booth which proved such a hit last year.

One of the more daunting challenges this year is to build a steam motorcyclie and ride it round The Wall of Death - winners get a £1,000 prize.

New fairground attractions include the Drop Tower in which you plummet a terrifying 120ft, The Wild Mouse, a gravity-defying new rollercoaster, and Willem Kelder's new 118 key Verbeeck concert organ - the largest travelling organ of its type in the world. Organiser Martin Oliver is expecting to beat yet another record with 225 steam engines already registered, 2,000 exhibits and 1,000 trade stands.

The pre-booking camp site has already closed its sales office, having already reserved its 4,000 plots and it looks as if sites on the casual site will be snapped up.

"We've already beaten last year's advance sales and if we get this weather we will equal the record crowds of last year when we had 245,000 visitors," Martin said.

"People regularly come from Australia, South Africa and the United States and from Europe. But this year one chap is coming from Iran and another from Ecuador - it's amazing where people come from."

And Thomas Cook will be on hand to change their money.

In fact - the steam fair site is like a temporary town with its whole infrastructure.

There's an amazing variety of food on offer, hundreds of portable loos and electric scooters for disabled people. The fair even has its own public telephones and a postbox.