A TEAM of dedicated volunteers spent three evenings stringing some 800 metres of bunting throughout Barnard Castle to ensure the town looks its best for the forthcoming jubilee and Meet weekend festivities.
Twelve volunteers worked into the night attaching the red, white and blue bunting in Galgate, Market Place, Horsemarket and Newgate using a cherry picker on loan from Chris Kearton.
Colin Glasper, from the Meet committee, said: “Having the cherry picker on loan from Chris did make the job a lot easier and we’re really appreciative as we couldn’t have done all we did with just ladders.
“We had fun and games with the traffic and everyone was very understanding. We did get soaked the first night with the rain but we were able to get it finished on Tuesday and Wednesday (May 17 and 18).”
He added: “We had hoped to be able to get bunting on The Bank, but it wasn’t possible because you need to have a level surface to get the cherry picker to work.
“Hopefully we will be able to look at putting fixings up on some of the buildings for next year so we could string the bunting using only ladders.
“It’s a shame that we couldn’t get it up there, but we will work on it.”
In addition to the bunting, volunteers aged between six and 70 helped hoist 51 union flags, sponsored by businesses and individuals, on buildings in the town centre earlier in the month.
Mr Glasper said: “We’d like to leave the flags and bunting up all summer if we can because it is jubilee all year, not just over the weekend.”
As well as Mr Glasper, Martyn and Caroline Maughan, Frank Tallentire, Craig Dunnill, Des Anstey, Pauline Glasper, Andrea Wardle, Lesley Taylor, Gareth Leonard, John Emerson, Andy Jefferies, Louise Finlay and her daughters gave up their time to decorate the town.
