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| Rose and Castle squire Steve Bignall receives a flag of St George from Rodney Wardlaw of the Royal Society of St George |
Hundreds turned out to watch the flag of St. George raised at a special ceremony at damp Stoke Bruerne despite grey skies and torrential rain - the first time a flag of any kind has flown on the canalside here for over twenty years. The last flag to fly was a a pair of ladies' outsize blue bloomers with a British Waterways logo on them hoisted as an April Fool’s day joke on April 1st 1992. Unsurprisingly, someone took umbrage and the halyards to the flagpole were cut and couldn’t be replaced because telephone lines across the canal prevented the pole from being lowered.
Recently local resident Kathryn Dodington contacted BT, Colin Richards and his team at BT’s local network business Openreach swung into action and earlier this month telephone cables were re-routed enabling local volunteers to drop the flagpole and replace the missing halyards under the auspices of the Canal & River Trust, successor to British Waterways.
The colourful St. George's day ceremony which featured local school children from Stoke Bruerne Primary School reciting the story of St. George and the Dragon, as well as dancing on the lockside from Stoke Bruerne based Rose & Castle Morris, saw a formal presentation of the flag by Rodney Wardlaw, member of The Royal Society of St. George before it was hoisted to pole position overlooking the canal. From now on the flag will be always flying in this corner of Northamptonshire!
Image: © James Rudd (About my area NN12)
Words: © Lynda Payton
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