Sci-fi scarecrows on show in annual village event

A village has been taken over by popular sci-fi figures replicated in scarecrow form, including E.T. and the Daleks from Doctor Who.

More than 50 installations are on display for the annual Wray Scarecrow Festival in Lancashire.

One of the organisers, John Gordon, said: "There are quite a few E.T.s around - on the bike, of course.

"We've got a number of Daleks, characters from Star Wars, and there's an amazing one from Planet Of The Apes."

Mr Gordon, 72, said some animated scarecrows have also been created, including a Dalek.

He said the offerings have all been a surprise as "people don't tell anybody else what they're up to" and the village "really throws itself into it".

Mr Gordon added: "There was one person who had his family eating yoghurts for two weeks so they could get the all pots to stick on a Dalek."

The idea for the sci-fi theme came from someone from the voluntary scarecrow committee who "threw the idea" out to fellow members who thought it sounded "great".

Mr Gordon and his wife have even got in on the action.

"Remember the film Mars Attacks? Well we've got one of the Martians at the foot of our drive," he said.

"At one point [in the movie], the Martian comes down and zaps the American president and turns him into a skeleton, and we have a fluorescent green skeleton beside our Martian."

He said "a lot of time" was spent making the cloak, as well as using modelling clay to construct the scarecrow's brain.

The festival - which began in the early 1990s - has an origin story as quirky as the scarecrows on offer.

"It started off by accident," Mr Gordon said.

"One of our people who lives here had gone to France on holiday and they saw what they thought was a man hanging off a tree and they were a bit worried about that, so they went into the local village to see what was happening and they noticed there was a scarecrow stuck on a bar outside the local pub.

"Wray is a very old traditional village and its had a May fair for centuries and they thought it would be a nice idea to add this to the May fair, so they persuaded one or two people to make scarecrows and it just took off from that.

"It was a momentary flash of brilliance."

Despite community being at the heart of the event, people come from across the UK to attend, with some years in their thousands.

The festival runs until 6 May, culminating with a traditional May fair including a giant scarecrow parade on 3 May.

The money raised is used to provide free use of village premises to voluntary organisations and to support other local causes like the community-owned village store.

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