A LARGE, colourful elephant will parade the streets of Tavistock next year — as Tavistock’s Carnival committee has announced the theme for the 2019 procession.

Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the publication of the first in the series of the very popular children’s books featuring the iconic Elmer the Patchwork Elephant written by David McKee. David was born in Tavistock in 1935, attended Tavistock Grammar School and then Plymouth College of Art and because of this anniversary and a suggestion made by one of this year’s carnival participants, the Lions’ Club of Tavistock has decided that next year’s carnival theme will be ‘Children’s Books’.

The club always tries to select a subject which gives participants a wide scope for interpretation.

One of the lead floats will feature a 1.1-metre high patchwork Elmer that has been created as part of Elmer’s Big Parade, which will feature 40 multi-coloured Elmers located around Plymouth. The trail will be in place for ten weeks in the summer of 2019, weaving its way through the city centre, around the waterfront to Royal William Yard and over to Mount Edgecombe.

St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth is working in partnership with Wild in Art and Anderson Press, the publisher of Elmer to bring this mass participation, family friendly art trail to life featuring this much-loved children’s character. Local companies will be encouraged to sponsor an Elmer which will have been donated by a local artist and at the end of the trail, the elephants will be auctioned off to raise money for St Luke’s.

Companies and artists who want to be involved can get more information from the project team on [email protected]

Alongside the trail, there is also an education programme in which 25 schools in the St Luke’s catchment area can be involved.

The programme will not only offer the chance for schools to design and decorate their very own ‘Young Elmer’ but it will also deliver an exciting and creative way of exploring some of the challenging issues such as diversity and loss that Elmer faces in his many adventures.

The Lions Club will be approaching some of the primary schools in the Tavistock area to see how they can assist the pupils to get involved in the project.

Elmer will be appearing in Tavistock in the carnival procession which will be on Saturday, July 20, 2019.

Jan Meakin, president of the Lions’ Club of Tavistock, said: ‘We are really looking forward to seeing how the children’s books theme is interpreted as there is such a wide choice from the modern stories of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and a host of characters from David Walliams’ books to the classics of AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh to Enid Blyton’s Famous Five.’

More detailed information about the carnival 2019 will be on the club’s website at www.tavistocklions.org.uk and its Facebook page nearer the time, but in the meantime, anyone requiring any further information can call 0845 8334807.