A large coach set off from Pool C of E Primary School, just after lunch, with all those children whose artwork had been chosen to appear on the banners that will welcome the Tour de France to our village. And what a fantastic day it turned out to be!
The printers, Dominion Screen and Digital Print of Bradford, had pre-organised everything to perfection. Our party was split into 4 groups of 10 and shown around the production of the banners in stages. The children behaved impeccably in the noisy, exciting environment full of gigantic print machinery and wonderful printing smells and colours.
Everyone, in stages, were led to one of these giant printing machines to witness 3 banners actually being printed, as if by magic, right before our very eyes. All the children were excited, wanting desperately to see their own banners.
The next stage was to view all the banners that were already printed, waiting for the finishing stage. What an amazing sight to see! Every workbench and tabletop was filled with the banners’ bright colours, and even though I myself was aware that they would be large, I was still taken aback by their dramatic scale. Imagine how the children reacted!
And to cap it all, something we hadn’t expected, the printers had very kindly printed out a small-scale version of every single banner, all 40 of them, to present to each and every child! What a wonderful present! ITV television reporter, Adam Fowler, filmed all the proceedings and a few very proud children were interviewed personally.
Later, back at school and after all children had disembarked the coach, I watched as excited children proudly presented their equally proud parents with their own personalised banners. They hurriedly recounted their exciting and marvellous tales from the day. Thanks also go to Pool C of E School who organised the day out, accompanied by Cllr Richard Parker, Mrs Jill Clark and Mrs Mandy Parnaby; Bay Media who organised the production of the banners; and most of all, my husband and partner in business, Tony, who has taken these fantastic photos. Karen van de Bospoort