On the 15th June 1994 Darwen Tower trig point, which had been adopted by our group after the Ordnance Survey relinquished them, was christened at a short ceremony attended by about 25 group members at that time. Maxine Hogbin had made a cake, complete with trig point, and champagne was provided by Tom Lyons to celebrate the occasion. Since then the trig has been painted at various times by Bob Waller but has started to look a bit uncared for lately so Gareth bought some paint and we set out to smarten it up.

Getting to the car park at Ryal Fold was a bit of a problem due to thick fog but fortunately it cleared by the time we got there. We couldn't believe our eyes, though, at the number of toddlers with mums and dads all at the car park and all going up to the tower! We warned them that we were going to paint the trig point and not to let their children touch it. When we reached the tower it was glorious sunshine and like a summers day so out came the paint brushes and we started work. Pretty soon the little army of kiddies and parents started to arrive and sat down to their picnics - I've never seen so many people up there at the same time! The work didn't take too long and none of the children touched it. The only thing that did was a dog who was going to cock his leg up on the trig point but we shooed it away albeit with a nice white stripe on its brown coat!

 After having a brew ourselves, we started to descend and were met by a young Asian couple,with their two young daughters, who were a bit lost as the fog had returned with a vengeance and they were unsure of the way down. We escorted them safely back to the car park and gave them one of our cards as they seemed interested in what the group were doing and wanted to look at our website. Who knows? we might get two new members.

Doreen