Matthew Cox as the Fat Contoller brought humour to the Station and, along with Penny Greenwood, set off to add entertainment to the happy scenes at Broadbottom and Hattersley! They were joined by John LeGrove who proved a real asset at Broadbottom in helping young children and prams over the bridge at Broadbottom! Eric Pass as always moved amongst everyone helping in his usual pragmatic and kindly manner! Meanwhile Jacqueline Horne moved in with her coffee and flasks with refreshments - An orange jacket please said she!
A busy busy fun table was the one being run by Andrea Strogen and Lesley Nixon featuring the wooden teddy bears created and kindly donated by Simon Denvers. Children were happily sticking on coloured beads and material to make their own named bears. A real hit! Pictures werealso being drawn. Over at the Story Telling Den Caroline was busy with puppets and props weaving her magic as stories were told!
Neil suddenly found himslf using the PA to announce the Teddy Bears' Specials - a professional job said Keth quietly to him as Neil pondered whether it had made sense!! On the trains lots of happy teddy travellers and families moving between the 3 stations. We estimated that 60 to 70 teddies, children and families moved between the stations from 11.00 to 1.00pm and lots of nice comments about the face painting at Broadbottom, the games at Hattersley were being shared! Also on the trains the guards entered the fun with gusto announcing Teddy Bear special trains and pointing out features en route such as the Viaducts. Many customers were first time travellers!
Theo McLauchlan, our Northern Line Manager, joined us along with his family from 10.00 and we must say a big thanks to Theo for his support of the event and for arranging the free travel between Glossop, Broadbottom and Hattersley Stations. We had many compliments about this!
Our thanks to everyone who came along!! To Dominic and David from the local papers. To John Kimpton for being a roving photographer and to Chris Strogen foran array of photos at Glossop. These can be viewed alongside this review. Contact us if you want copies. Thanks to our Glossop Northern staff Pete, Keith, Dave and Graham for support on the day and with help in publicising it To Paul Marsh for fantastic posters! And to Alison Holt from the newly formed Friends of Dinting for putting up pictures at Dinting station. To Steve Magner from TfGM for financial help with publicity and for joining us on the day! And Neil's thanks to Babs at Hattersley, Steve, Alison and Jonathon at Broadbottom for all their enthusiasm, planning and hard work in makingthe 2012 Teddy Bears' Picnic happen! And the sun shone!!!!!