Photos by Stella Gooch
The gardens at Millbridge Care Home in Lynn Road, Heacham were the beautiful setting for the Heacham Scarecrow Festival as in past years. The gardens looked picturesque as usual.
However, it cannot be denied that the weather was not helpful for this year’s festival – the fifth in its history. The volunteers battled against the winds and, unfortunately, the Lavender Hill Mob lost one of their marquees to it. But there were enough breakthrough moments of sunshine which enabled things to continue and the visitors still came.
Many of this year’s scarecrow entries were created by children’s groups such as the Scouts and Rainbows. Although there were not so many entries there was a lot of imagination shown. I particularly liked Noah’s Ark (by Christine Dean) and the Scout camp (by Heacham Scouts) . The declared winner was Noah’s Ark and second place was awarded to Beryl Cook’s Vera (by Nancy Robinson).
The quality of the live entertainment by the Lavender Hill Mob was second to none with tremendous variety too. Even some of the more mature visitors to the event took part in showing off their dance moves which served to enthrall the audience even more!! Organiser, Beth Geraghty said: “The Lavender Hill Mob put on two wonderful displays for us; the audience participation in ‘Hot Stuff’ from the Full Monty was a sight to behold! We would encourage anyone who has never seen this theatre group to make the effort to get to one of their shows.”
Mrs Geraghty went on to say: ” Thank you and well done to all those who made the effort to enter; the time and energy that goes into the scarecrows is obvious. Thank you also to all the people who manned our stalls this year, and to those who helped with the setting up and clearing away. Without this type of help we cannot put on the festival. We raised nearly £250. The money raised was split between the Heacham Youth Club and the Lavender Hill Mob. We have also made a donation to the resident’s fund at Millbridge. The staff and residents allow us to invade their home every year and bear the disruption without complaint; we are hugely grateful for this.”
Thank you to Beth and her team of organisers for another enjoyable day out.









