Sun-blessed festival pulls in the crowds... and a truck

CUP THAT CHEERS: Leg encased in plaster, Trish Kirkby is comforted by a cup of tea provided by Alfie Lentle. Luckily he was on hand to remove a heavy plank which landed on Ms Kirkby’s foot on Saturday in Teignmouth. Picture David Caunter.IT was a painful end to the Teignmouth Harbour Festival for one of the organisers, writes John Ware.Trish Kirkby was helping to dismantle the beach stage, when one of the heavy floor planks fell on her and she suffered a painful broken foot and multiple bruising.‘They were stacked at an angle, and as I tried to load one onto a trailer, they tipped over and pushed me backwards. I landed on my back. ‘It was just one of those accidents, and it could have been a lot worse, especially if one of our workers, Alfie Lentle, had not moved some of the planks off me. You live and learn about these things,’ said a philosophical Ms Kirkby.Despite a leg in plaster up to the knee, and having to get around in a wheelchair, she was back at her business, Garstones, which makes garden ornaments on the sand quay, this week.‘It is going to take six weeks to heal, and I am in the office answering the phones and other light duties. I am glad the festival went so well.’The event on the harbour beach by the New Quay Inn, on Saturday, was organised by Teignmouth Estuary Rotary Club, and raised more than £1,000, which will be donated to the National Coastwatch Institution and AIMS.Club president Geoff Dove rated it the ‘most successful event we have ever organised’, and thanked everybody who attended, participated or performed.It was opened by the Teignmouth harbourmaster, Cmdr David Vaughan, and the good weather encouraged hundreds to go along, to watch or take part in a variety of different events. Crowds packed on to the quayside, where the town’s fleet had gathered to receive the annual blessing of the boats conducted by local clergy, the Rev Sue Astbury, the Rev