The secret is out of the bag. Without any help from his “little helpers,” Coventry Leofric Lions Club’s Santa was called into action on Thursday 28th June to give a lift on his sleigh to 82 years young Jean Sedgewick. Jean is a resident from Princethorpe Court, Ernsford Grange, one of the retirement villages run by the charity Extra Care Charitable Trust and was given the challenge of carrying an alternative torch, the Charity Torch, from the Asda store in London road, Coventry to the next changeover point at the Orchard Retail Park, about a mile away. The event formed part of a summer of celebrations at 38 Extra Care Charitable Trust retirement villages throughout the country. Each centre was asked to find “unusual” transport to carry a representative and their torch as part of a relay.
Santa waited patiently in the car park until a patriotically decorated milk float arrived from Princethorpe Court together with the Lord Mayor of Coventry, Councillor Tim Sawdon and Ram Lakha, Councillor for Binley and Willenhall. After photo shoots a crowd of well-wishers cheered the group on their way.
London road Coventry came to a standstill as a cavalcade of vehicles including the milk float, three vintage cars and a coach full of Extra Care residents were led at walking pace by Santa, alias Club President Peter Broughton and his sleigh together with his Lion mascot. The traffic was efficiently controlled by two community police officers on their mountain bikes.
Event organiser Sandie Ball was very elated about the success of the day, especially as they managed to miss some of the worse thunder storms of the summer.
Leofric Lions were pleased to help their damsel in distress and used the opportunity to promote their next big event – the Donkey Derby which is being held at Coventry’s War Memorial Park on Saturday 4th August.
The torch continued its journey onwards to the St. Crispin Retirement Village in Northampton together with the residents of Princethorpe Court and three vintage cars.