A TRADITIONAL village carnival enjoyed a bumper number of floats which took to the streets for its annual procession at the weekend.

The Middleton-in-Teesdale Carnival started on Friday night with a family fun night at the sports and social club, which followed the crowning of the new carnival queen, 11-year-old Leah Fletcher. She was ably assisted by her attendants Autumn McLoughlin and Kacie Morgan. The carnival was opened by Gordon Jones and Diane Spark.

On Saturday hundreds of people turned out to watch the colourful float and fancy dress parade.

Committee member Sophie Markwick said: “It was an incredible turn out and fantastic to see so many people put such an enormous amount of effort into their costumes.

“The float competition was won by Save our Seas – a superbly executed protest against plastic in our oceans, with David Attenborough riding a whale as the figurehead.

“In a very close second place was NASA celebrating 50 years since the first man on the moon in 1969. Their float even had anti-gravity astronauts.

“In third place it was hakuna matata, the Lion King group who certainly got the party started. Thank you to all the groups who dressed up.”

On the carnival field the merriment continued. The new Landmark Golf was particularly successful, and great fun was had on the inflatables, at the coconut shy and “up in the skies” on the fire engine lift.

The pick of the litter at the dog show was Finn the little dog with all the personality.

He captured the heart of judge Chris Markwick, the GP at Old Forge Surgery in the village, by being the slowest pooch to complete the Temptation Alley recall challenge, in a dawdling 46 seconds (compared to 2.4 for the winner).

The committee thanks all the individuals and businesses who have contributed their time, energy, resources and money to make the carnival a wonderful family day out.

Committee chair Eileen Dent said: “We had a fantastic turnout and a great day was had by all.

“Once again it shows what a very creative and generous community we have here in Middleton-in-Teesdale and the upper dale.

“A very big thank you to everyone who did so much to make it a special and thoroughly enjoyable day.”