WHAT a particularly successful, joyful and sunny occasion harvest festival was this year for St Breward Church.

The church was beautifully decorated with flowers, fruit, vegetables and produce. Also, there was a scarecrow on the pulpit — named by the village’s toddler group ‘Scary Mary’, amusingly the vicar was almost displaced for room on the pulpit for the sermon — and bales of hay from a wild flower meadow were placed on the altar.

On Sunday the harvest service was particularly well attended and this was followed by a service for the toddler group on the Monday morning. That evening, following a further short service, everyone gathered up the food and produce offerings, which were taken down to the village hall for auctioning.

The supper table took up the whole of the length of the hall with over 40 participating and, after enjoying pasties and a plethora of yummy puddings, churchwarden Paddy McShee conducted an immensely jovial auction, including the auctioning of ‘Scary Mary’. Bidding brisk, humorous and generous. The collection in church on the Sunday raised £66 for the RABI. The supper and auction on the Monday evening raised a record £351 for the church.

Caroline Hooper, church events co-ordinator and PCC treasurer, said: “A big thank you to all who grew, baked, decorated, donated or attended for this important seasonal occasion.”