Meet Fireman Sam and his bonfire, aka Harry, Heidi, Dahlia and Honey Woodall, whose efforts meant they won the mounted fancy dress at the Southwell Ploughing Match on 27 September.
Accompanied by their parents Katie and Mark Woodall, four-year-old Harry starred as his favourite cartoon character with 27-year-old Shetland Dahlia; his one-year-old sister Heidi with her 20-year-old Shetland Honey flamed alongside.
Katie told H&H Harry is a huge Fireman Sam fan, so when the idea of the fancy dress class was mooted, he said yes please, and that he would like to go as his hero.
“I said ‘Why don’t you be him and Heidi could be something from Peter Rabbit’, as she’s quite into him, and he said ‘Really Mummy, I’d like her to be the bonfire, then I can have a water gun to try to put her out’!”
Katie said her mother Gill Greeves, “who claims not to be crafty”, created Fireman Sam’s engine from cardboard and red paint. Mark, in a matching outfit, led his son, and Katie took Heidi, both sporting flaming headdresses.
“Harry was going round squirting the audience and Heidi with his water pistol; she got the short straw but was oblivious and Harry thought it was brilliant!” Katie said. “It was a real family affair; both sets of grandparents came and even my granny, who’s in her late 80s, came to watch. Harry had helped make the costume and we all got stuck in.”
Katie paid tribute to the Shetlands as the stars of the day.
“They’re absolute saints, the salt of the earth,” she said. “They’re lovely ponies.”
Katie, who started riding as a tot and worked her way up through Pony Club up to British Eventing novice, added: “After a lifetime of eventing my greatest success is down to a cardboard box, tin of red paint, two saintly ponies and a doting granny who is luckily very creative!
“I put it on Facebook and so many people commented. I said to my mum ‘Should we sent it to H&H; wouldn’t it be funny if after all those years of eventing, Badminton grassroots, regional finals, I got into H&H for fancy dress! I thought it might make people smile.”
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