Torchlight Procession 2012

Waldringfield Torchlight Procession 2012

This years return of the Torchlight procession by popular demand took place on Saturday 27th October to celebrate the start of Winter and again organised by Tom Griffiths. The evening started with a pumpkin party at the village hall where residents showed off and shared their pumpkin creations, made from the pumpkins that were to line the procession route to the river.

At 7pm the Piper arrived to surprise the crowds and piped the torchlit procession down to the beach through the village past pumpkins and lit gardens. Waldringfield's own version of Up Helly Aa! Organisers had again pulled out all the stops, decorating the beach, lit with chinese lanterns and pumpkins. Village storyteller, Gareth Thomas from Deben Lane, enchanted the hushed crowd on the beach with the fable of local fisherman John McGee (who appeared rowing along in his torchlit dinghy) and then the (wire-free, 100% degradable!) sky lanterns were released over the river to the backdrop of 2 more pipers who played and paraded along the beach. Unlike last year, the day had dawned wet and windy with hail showers on and off until nightfall, however as the sun set the wind dropped and the moon came out in full to light the river and form a magnificent backdrop. Tom worked a miracle and arranged some better weather after such a day. Unfortunately the wind direction was not in quite as good as last year, so the lanterns were blown more down river towards Ramsholt and launching was a little more difficlut. One had to stand as near to the water as possible and hold on tightly in the still slightly gusty wind, until fully inflated.

As the lanterns floated of towards Felixstowe Hot Chocolate was served from the Sailing Club.

Many thanks to everyone involved and especially to Tom.

Pictures courtesy of Donna Morgan and Bob Whitehouse.