Cromer Carnival 2011

Every year in August the RNLI Cromer branch gets involved in the towns annual Carnival celebrations.

This year however was a little different!

We were involved in the 999 display on the carnival field on the Tuesday and Wednesday along with the Fire, Police, Air Ambulance & Coastguard, as usual, but this year we decided to build a float for the parade, which takes place on the Wednesday evening, instead of towing the display boat around the town.

RNLI Cromer volunteers spent many an evening in the inshore lifeboat shed, beavering away building two lifeboats for the float. One was a representation of the H F Bailey and the other our Tamar class offshore lifeboat the Lester.

Our visits team leader, Rose Keating, was responsible for keeping the rest of us in order and making sure we kept to a strict schedule. Members of the Henry Blogg Museum staff were on hand to give vital design and handyman support, while station emergency mechanic, Adam Lincoln, was on hand with technical guidance when it came to the Tamar.

The build only took an amazing 8 weeks, from plans to completion, some materials were donated by local firms and some were purchased locally with generous discounts. Everybody involved did so with fantastic enthusiasm and all had an incredible eye for detail.

As well as the two boats, there were waves, and Monte the dog to cut out and paint. There was port holes to make and railings too! Members of the Ladies Lifeboat Guild were involved with a lot of the detailed painting.

On the Monday of carnival week we were unfortunately let down by the company that had promised to lend us a vehicle for the day of the parade, so we had a few anxious hours trying to locate a replacement at very short notice.

We managed to get in touch with the transport department at RNLI headquarters in Poole and found out that there was a lorry due to make a delivery to the Henry Blogg Museum shop on the Thursday. Having contacted the driver, Steve, we were very grateful that he was able to change his plans to help us take part in the carnival parade.

All the hard work paid off as we managed to win our class!

Thank You Steve :)