A NEW Year’s Day event which attracts thousands of spectators to a village near Ashbourne will end if no one can be found to organise it in the future.
Mappleton Boat Race and Bridge Jump attracted around 2,000 people on Sunday, but the current organisers warned 2012 is the last one they can organise.
Founding member, Jim Breeze, has organised the boat race and bridge jump for the last 28 years, and last year said that 2012 would be his last event.
However, Mr Breeze, who has been very ill, has had to pass part of the organising for this year’s event to Barrie Wright and his wife Diane, and, as yet, no one has come forward to take over the event for next year and beyond.
Diane Brown of Atlow Moat watched as her 13- year-old daughter took part in the event for the first time. She said: “My daughter Lily Brown and her friend Willow Kerr, both students at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School jumped off the bridge with their friend Charlie Edes, who came to visit for New Year.
“The girls are only 13 so I think they were the youngest jumpers. What a way to start the New Year, they were really brave.
“I’m so proud of them. They did it because they were inspired to raise money for charity.” This year, the boat race was a mixed race, instead of having separate ladies and men’s races, with a further half dozen people braving the cold of the River Dove and leaping from Mappleton Bridge.
