After setting up in the face of a crisis 20 years ago, Ripley Scarecrow Pigfest has been cancelled this year – because of the pandemic.

The event was due to celebrate its 20th anniversary with plans to stage the biggest and best festival to date.

It was launched in 2001 to attract people back to the village and wider countryside in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis. Now, in an ironic twist, another crisis means it will not go ahead this year.

Organiser Karen Evans, who lives near Ripon, came up with the idea for a scarecrow hunt, featuring pig-headed characters with imaginative names given by their creators.

For consistency of look she has, in the previous 19 years, made the papier mache heads for each Pigfest character – providing a subtle nod to Ripley’s boar’s head emblem.

Karen told the Stray Ferret:

“Unfortunately, we have become victims of our own success and couldn’t risk public safety, with hundreds of people in the confined space of the village.”

Boarglar Bill, one of the imaginatively-named characters who has featured at Ripley Scarecrow Pigfest

It has also brought another financial setback for the All Saints’ Church fabric fund which, over the years, has benefitted from donations of thousands of pounds raised through the entry fee for participants.

Karen, who is a warden at the Ripley church, pointed out:

“Combined with the fact that we have not been able to have the Wednesday cafe at All Saints’ open this summer, we have seen a loss of revenue totalling around £11,000.”

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Rather than bemoan the losses, she decided to literally get on her bike to provide another means of raising money, both for the church and the Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre at Harrogate Hospital, which is dear to her heart, having been treated there herself.

Between September 21 and 24, Karen and friend Judith Nickols will do a 137-mile sponsored cycle ride starting from Whitehaven on the west coast and finishing in Tynemouth on the east coast.

Both are keen cyclists and are training hard in readiness for the challenging and hilly coast to coast course.

Anybody wanting to sponsor Karen can find further details about her fundraising for All Saints’ Church Ripley and The Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre on her justgiving page.