I took a trip to the 2016 Heather Scarecrow Festival today, just in time before the week long display of locally made scarecrows came to an end. I have written before about the 2014 and the 2015 events, and this year was another superb crop of crows. It is the 18th running of the festival in the Leicestershire village that sees the local residents adorn their gardens with scarecrows, usually with a topical or witty – and quite often both – theme.
The highlights for me are normally those themed on aviation or Dr Who, but this year the my undoubted favourite was Fernando Alonscro, bringing scarecrows to the world of motor racing.
This scarecrow is so impressive that it even comes with its own video:
That was good enough to get a retweet from Fernando Alonso, so probably one of the most viewed scarecrows of the year.
There’s a scarecrow in honour of @alo_oficial at @HeatherScarecro. Not sure that’s a @McLarenF1 though..: pic.twitter.com/bgXTiPlOm1
— Mark Haggan (@markhaggan) August 7, 2016
On the topic of attracting attention, the EU Referendum was the theme for a couple of scarecrows, and saw the Daily Telegraph come to have a look.
The BBC also gave the festival a mention on their sports pages, and given that Heather is in Leicestershire, two local footballers, Jamie Vardy and Gary Lineker both made an appearance.
Having returned to earth recently, Tim Peake was a theme for a number of scarecrows this year.
My son was quite taken my the Stick Man scarecrows, who made more than one appearance.
I quite liked both Dangermouse and Mr Bean…
There was of course one scarecrow with a link to aviation, this year it was the Red Barrows…
If that wasn’t enough references to engines, there was a Guy Martin scarecrow too…
Unfortunately the added publicity did not just bring more visitors wanting to see the scarecrows – although there were plenty of them – a couple of the scarecrows went missing during the week. Hopefully they will be recovered and returned to those who put so much effort into making them.
We had, as always, a fantastic day in Heather, and the bright sunny weather today meant that the village was very busy, with the beer festival and music festival also on at the same time helping. Keep watching for the dates for 2017 – it’s just around the corner from Donington Park for you motor racing fans – as I’m sure that it will be well worth the trip.
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