Janice Quilliam, of Peel, is the winner of this year’s Isle of Man Flower Festival photographic competition.
Her photograph (above), taken at the Old Grammar School, in Castletown, was judged the best in a high-quality competition. It earned her a £50 voucher for Elaine’s Florists.
It proved impossible to split the three next best photographs, two at Abbey Church by Jane South, of Santon and one at Ballabeg Methodist Church, by Margaret Dodd, of Regaby.
Margaret decided to donate her runners-up prize of a £20 voucher for Alexander Nurseries to Ballabeg Methodist Church and, when she realised Mary Cringle was the contact there, an amazing coincidence was uncovered.
Margaret revealed: ‘Our neighbours are the Radcliffe family of whom Mary was the daughter. She was the organist at Regaby chapel and I took over that job when she married (former President of Tynwald) Noel!’
Mary took the opportunity, the next time she travelled north, to call in to see Margaret to receive the donation.
The Isle of Flower Festival, in July proved, to be a big success once again. Many people shared on social media their pictures from the wide variety of displays at the many venues around the Island.
A late flurry of entries to the competition before the deadline passed saw a larger selection than last year, from which the judges chose their winners.
Pictures needed to illustrate the theme of this year’s festival which was Charity Is …
Committee member Judy Matthews said: ‘Yet again, it was a very difficult task to choose a winner, but Janice’s picture was the favourite among the judges. Very well done to her.
‘It was lovely to hear about the coincidence for Margaret and Mary. The Flower Festival is a huge community event and happy stories like this are the icing on the cake.’
The committee will soon be sitting down to start plans for next year’s event.
To keep up to date with details about the Flower Festival, visit www.flowerfest.im
Related article:
Flower Festival 2017 gets underway
Best of Flower Festival 2016 photographs
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