A town crier who has become a key member of the local community at a Lincolnshire seaside town will be putting his area on the map after qualifying for the final of the Town Crier World Championships.
David Summers is an ex-town councillor in Mablethorpe was is now the town crier of Mablethorpe, Trusthorpe and Sutton on Sea, making public announcements for people along the east coast of Lincolnshire for a number of years.
He has gained huge notoriety for his declarations, and will now be given the ultimate opportunity to put Mablethorpe on the map, as he has been named as one of the 24 finalists at the Town Crier World Championships.
The event will be held in Nova Scotia, Canada next year, and David has said he’s looking forward to representing Lincolnshire.
He said: “The whole idea is to promote Mablethorpe, Sutton on Sea, Sandilands and Trusthorpe, it’s a whole area we can promote just by being who I am.”
David does around 350 cries a year, and has been known to be a widespread supporter of good causes and charities in his local community.
He is said to be one of the biggest supporters of MABOP22, the first ever Pride event in Mablethorpe, taking place this summer, and organisers of MABOP want to help get him to Canada for the championships.
It is believed that all travel, accommodation, insurance and outfit costs will total around £9,000 to allow for David and his wife to go over to Canada for the World Championships, and members of the Mablethorpe community are hoping to help him on his way.
The Blitz Tea Room on Fitzwilliam Street is currently running a raffle of food and drink to help raise funds for David, and to take part you can visit the cafe’s Facebook page.
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Nominations are open for schools and education settings to be recognised in the 2022 Lincolnshire Education Excellence Awards.
The event is organised by Stonebow Media, publishers of The Lincolnite, to celebrate the best school and teachers in Greater Lincolnshire.
The headline sponsors making the awards possible are Lincoln College Group.
Twelve categories are now open for nominations. The deadline for nominations is June 3, with a judging lunch scheduled for June 7.
Nominations are open from parents, carers, friends, families or education settings themselves, so if you know someone who deserving of winning now is the time to vote!
The awards ceremony will be held at the Engine Shed on July 7.
It’s been a week since the controversial statue of Margaret Thatcher was installed in Grantham’s St Peter’s Hill.
The £300,000 bronze monument immediately caused a stir and debate from both supporters and opponents of the first female Prime Minister of the UK.
Within hours of its 7am installation last Sunday, it had already been egged by a man later revealed to be 59-year-old Jeremy Webster, a deputy director at the Attenborough Arts Centre at the University of Leicester.
Mr Webster’s mother-in-law recently described his actions as “childish”.
Quoted in the MailOnline she said: “Margaret Thatcher lasted a long time in power. She was a trailblazer as the first woman prime minister and she had such energy, even though I know she slept very little.
“I’m very surprised to hear about all of this [egg throwing]. I’m going to have to call my daughter. I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy would be the sort of person to do this. It seems very childish to me – he has a responsible job.”
There have been reports of other antisocial behaviour taking place including people urinating up the statue, but investigations into these are yet to be confirmed by officials.
Away from the statue itself, others took to social media to react to the new monument.
Twitterer @BolsoverBeast thought Mr Webster’s actions should be expanded as a way to… get more people involved?
I think it would be a good idea to put Thatcher’s statue on a low loader and tow it slowly around the country so that we all have a chance to throw something at it. pic.twitter.com/uftMqr0LgR
— Chloe Schlosberg (@ChloeSchlosberg) May 19, 2022
Some called back to the fate of other statues
@Irritatedllama called back to the fate of slave trader Edward Colston who was thrown into the Bristol Harby in June 2020.
It's absolutely disgraceful that people are throwing eggs at the Margaret Thatcher statue in Grantham! We need to deploy a taskforce to give it jolly good wash!#Granthampic.twitter.com/RKftKUls4u
It wasn’t long before a parody account of the statue was set up on Twitter – nor before “she” was interacting with other parody accounts.
It was awful. I could see almost all of Grantham
— That Statue of Thatcher (@thatcher_statue) May 18, 2022
A… positive view?
There were supporters of the statue, however, Darren Grimes from GBNews was one of the few popular posts calling on people not to “give in to threats of petty vandalism”. He later posted the statue should be in parliament – where it was previously rejected from.
I honestly think Margaret Thatcher would have found this first round of petty vandalism of her statue to be utterly hilarious.
The statue looks absolutely glorious.
Almost a decade on from her passing, she’s still winding them up!
Some, like @Jonnyhibberd were more measured in their response.
I don't see a problem with a Thatcher statue and I also don't see a problem with people throwing eggs at it. Thatcher is an important part of our history, and so is what a lot of people thought about her.
— Jonathan Hibberd 🇺🇦 (@Jonnyhibberd) May 18, 2022