This piece was kindly submitted by Jo-Anne Harland.

Rudston All Saints Church bloomed over the weekend, as it displayed a huge variety of flowers in a fund raising idea that will be contributing to the Church Tower Fund. The Festival of Flowers, which had its preview on Friday 10^th September, and continued until Monday 13^th, showed members of the public the spectacular results of community spirit and hard work. The theme for the flower festival was the popular hymn "Who put the colours in the rainbow?" and this allowed creative ideas to flow throughout the entire church. Many of the local villagers contributed to the event where the work inside the church started on the Wednesday before the festival.

I was lucky enough to be part of this team myself as my grandma, Shirley Harland asked if I would be interested in helping out, and warned me that there would be a lot of hard work involved and that it would be a long, tiring day. I arrived at the church at 9.00 am and was amazed at the vast numbers of flowers that were in the vestry. I thought that they looked amazing just standing in the buckets and was delighted when I saw how the arrangements were put together. I had no previous experience with flowers (except for growing sunflowers when I was younger), and the task ahead seemed a little daunting. The display that I would be helping my grandma with was entitled "Who put the salt into the sea?” With the help of Angela Train (a professional flower arranger) she had an idea, which at first appeared to be a mammoth task.

As the day progressed, the flowers started coming to life so I took the opportunity to ask some of the volunteers about the festival. I first spoke to Yvonne Watt who was creating the arrangement entitled "Who put the snow into the snowflake?" She told me that she has been doing flower arranging as a hobby for a number of years and had become involved in the festival through a relative, June Sellars, who was the organiser of the event. Her theme allowed her to be creative with the more neutral coloured flowers that she was provided with, and with a bit of help from her own Christmas decorations, the final display was magical.

Another volunteer, Angela Dawson, has been helping with the flower arrangements in the church since 1976, and says that the best thing about flower arranging is creating movement and character through the arrangements. Usually she uses flowers grown in her own garden and said, "It makes a nice change using exotic flowers." Her display, "Who put the gold into the sunshine?" made an instant impact as you walked around the church.