Didn’t we have a lovely party in Victoria Park to celebrate 50 years of Frome Town Council? The sun came out and so did hordes of people, looking around the various activities and display stands from local voluntary organisations. Victoria Park Café ran a barbecue, there were pizzas and ice creams, as well as a bar from the Cheese & Grain. We were treated to a varied programme of music on the bandstand from Frome Town Band, Paul Kirtley, Butane Skies and Millie Steel, before the South West Ceilidh Band got people up and dancing in the park to round off the day!
I enjoyed acting as MC for the event and sharing some memories and trivia about other 1974 events: not just the launch of Frome Town Council, but also the year I left school, and the year ‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud was the most popular song in the charts! It was great to welcome Rob Beckley the High Sheriff of Somerset and introduce him to some of the wonderful people who volunteer their time and skills to make Frome what it is. Many thanks to everyone who took part, whether you ran an activity or came along to celebrate with us – here’s to the next 50 years!
Since then, the Frome Running Festival has revived the town’s annual half marathon, 5k and 10k running event after a two-year gap, providing plenty of opportunity for the more energetic amongst us to stretch our legs. The event attracted visitors from across the country, and many of them came up to me afterwards to say how much they’d appreciated the support and welcome from local people cheering them on – and providing cooling hosepipe sprays! They were probably especially welcome to Radek Evans, running his 13th half marathon for local charity Purple Elephant in an elephant suit! Hopefully this will now return to our calendars as an annual event, organised by Runthrough.co.uk. If you want to know the results, have a look at https://www.runthrough.co.uk/results/ but taking part is what really matters.
I also dropped in on the Talking Café at the Cheese and Grain on Monday morning. They’ve been meeting for over 11 years supported by Shane Ibbitson and the Health Connections Mendip team. Anyone can just pop along from 10am to 11.30am most Mondays, except public holidays. Shane is also doing a charity rock climb at Cheddar Gorge on 20th September in support of RUHX and I know she’ll be glad of any additional sponsorship for that event – look her up on JustGiving if you’d like to help her on her way!
