Scarecrows take an outing

THE West Street scarecrows moved into The Square on Tuesday for the draw to discover who had won the recent competition.

As an add-on to Wimborne Food Festival, traders had organised a Scarecrow Trail through the street ending up at Wimborne Model Town.

Business owners, in particular Paul Gruitt from Tales from the Woods, and Alan Reade from A Little Decorum, created 21 scarecrows. Twelve of these were mounted over shops and doorways, and had a name badge with a letter of the alphabet at the end.

Participants in the competition then had to re-arrange those letters into a word often repeated in West Street.

The answer was Quarterjack and the winners of a Healthy Harvest hamper from Spill the Beans were Morgan and Harry Burke from Ringwood. Receiving second prize of a smaller hamper was Jake Churchill from Wimborne.

Wimborne Model Town had planned to award three runners-up with family tickets to be used next year, but such was the response to the competition, that ten tickets have been awarded.

The correct entries were drawn from a basket by Joe Drennan, son of Maggie Drennan from Spill the Beans who came up with the idea for the trail.

Paul Druitt, one of the organisers of the trail said he was delighted with the response to the competition which produced entries from visitors from all over the country including Leamington Spa, Winchester, Ipswich and Worthing.

Alan Reade said: "Children were so excited by the trail, and it took off so well. All the traders pulled together to make this a success."

The Square outing isn't the last that will be seen of the scarecrows as people will be able to be photographed with them when the Model Town opens for weekends during December.

Report and photo by Marilyn Barber