LONDON LION SCARF DAY: 20th March 2007

It was due to a lot of hard work by a lot of lovely people that all this took place. We were very sorry that some of the Lion Ladies (Grace and Emmy) could not make it for the big day. For the rest of them we take our knitted hats off. We couldn’t have warmed those beasts without you, and you should be as happy as a giant lion with an enormous scarf wrapped around your neck of what you have achieved.

(clockwise from the far left) Sarah, Danny, Mickey, Laura D, Joelle, Laura P, Frances, Sophie, Brigitte, Lauren, Natali, Candice and Margaret

Sophie, Lauren, Brigitte, Laura, Candice and Margaret (top)

Joelle and Frances (bottom)

Michael, Brett and Peter

Couldn’t have done it without you. And quite possibly wouldn’t have wanted to anyway as you’re all fabulous to warm lions with.

One of my favourite parts of Lion Bescarfing Day was meeting the lovely Beate and her sister and mum. Although I didn’t have very long to catch up with them all in the chaos.

Back when all this began Beate’s mum knitted her beautiful blue part of the lion scarf and added Beate’s initial to it in honour of her brave daughter’s battle with a rare form of cancer. So it was an honour to find that Beate and her family had postponed their trip back to Germany just to come along and see us warm the Lions.

Thanks so much for Beate and her folks for coming. It is for people like them that the day was all about and we hope that we did you all proud.

Beate’s sister, mum, the lovely lady herself and me with the warm beast

Once one lion was warmed we swiftly moved onto the rest of them. The vision was to join all four lions in a liony extravaganza of loveliness…

And it was all going rather well.

Lion One done.

Lion Two done.

Lion three…

What was that? They want us to what?! Oooooh…

So the press descended upon our peaceful lion uniting plans and turned them into something which wasn’t quite the vision I had been seeing in my sleep for the past six months but was still pretty marvellous to behold.

They wanted as much scarf as we could get around one chilly beast (seemed unfair on the rest of them, but that is the press for you) for a photo opportunity.

So with our giant knitting needles, a couple of promotional-raising-money-for-Cancer-Research smiles and feet swinging in the wind we climbed between the paws of the favoured beast and got bescarfing.

“Throw the scarf over ‘is ‘ead!” They shouted from below. We tried our very best but the wind wasn’t having it. And to be quite frank it was a scarf, not a hat! Honestly!

Hard as we tried it wasn’t going to work. So in the end the press has to do with the scarf just being round his neck. Which I suspect the lion was quite pleased about too.

All the scarf throwing made for a very nice photo though (Image: © Laura Porter (2007), licensed to About.com, Inc. Reproduced with permission).

Once they had calmed down it was time for some serious photo taking. Look over here, smile, don’t smile, cheer, now look over here, climb up the side, pretend to arrange the scarf, climb down here, hold this banner, smile, don’t smile, hold this other banner, hold these needles, Laura here, Lauren here, Laura there, Lauren there, all with a giant Lion purring in our ears too.

ITV news appeared and did an interview with me. I can’t remember much of it except that my voice sounded incredibly posh and the lady interviewing me kept nodding encouragingly like I was at school.

All in all it was absolute media madness. Which was sort of the point.

At an ungodly hour over 550-foot of Lion Scarf came out of the underground and arrived where it belonged. Smack bang in the middle of London’s Trafalgar Square. You could practically hear he purring of the four giant beasts as they spied the enormous lengths of knitting appearing from the tube entrance.

Well you could have heard them if my heart had not been beating so loudly. Here we were, after all this time. And I have to admit I felt sick, sick, sick.

Five months of so much hard work: knitting, sewing, promoting, talking to press, organising meetings, apologising to the overworked postman, measuring lions, designing leaflets, learning to make a website from scratch, blogging (as you can see) as many stories as I could, photographing, pain-stakingly cataloguing where every part came from, how long it was and who knit it, printing t-shirts, chasing up logo designers, staying up till 4 am to make sure every knitting site on the Internet knew about it, knitting and reknitting my own Lion Scarf patch until it was perfect…

And it was all coming together around the necks of four giant lions smack bang in the middle of one of the biggest cities on the planet.

Sooooo I took a deep breath, the Lion Scarf Team grabbed some coffees (it had been a long night) and we waited for the chaos to begin. Laura and I climbed on a bench and did some kind of rousing pep talk which I cannot recall a bit of (and it is likely none of the people who I was meant to be pepping up do either). But it felt like the thing to do…

At exactly 11am it all began with Laura and I looking at each other in fear and what-shall-we-do now panic. But fear was not about to unhinge either of us. After allowing ourselves a moment of silent screaming we took charge.

Michael and Brett donned their Lion Scarf jackets (ooo shiny and yet safe) and with the help of the ladders they climbed each side of the beast.

Before this moment we hadn’t really had a chance to practice the whole bescarfing so I sort of played it by ear. One Lion Lad on one side, one on the other, and a few helpful Lion Ladies rushing about from side to side with the huge rolls of scarf. It began to work pretty well.

To our surprise there was Lion Number one all warm and bescarfed! Hurrah!

The night had been long, measuring 550ft of scarf, sewing in loose ends, and going through the logistics of placing scarves around giant Lion statues. We’d gone to bed far too late and woken up early to prepare for the madness ahead of us. It was a morning of nervous excitement at the task ahead as after months of planning we were nearing completion of what we had set out to do.

The scarves were rolled up into 4 giant spirals and put in clear sturdy IKEA bags. From the outside they looked like beautiful multicoloured snail shells. Slowly the team assembled, each hoisting a scarf on to their shoulder and so we were ready for the voyage into London.

Up the road we bounded lugging the cumbersome bags as best we could. All the while feeling not too sure about what was to face us. The weather was cold, windy and a little bit wet, but the troupe was bubbling with anticipation and energy.

Once at the station we waited for the train, praying that it wouldn’t be too packed. We managed to squeeze ourselves onto one carriage and keep the scarves out of harms way for the journey into waterloo. There were a few odd looks as we blurted out our feelings and thoughts on what was about to happen to a camcorder. But we were so full of butterflies we didn’t care.

At waterloo we squeezed through the barriers with the bags, got down to the tube in good time and were well and truly on our way.

Once at Charing Cross station we walked up the steps into the square and all felt a twang of fear as we faced the beasts we had set out to clothe all those months ago. The scarves had arrived, so had we; all that was left was to get them up there.

Five News are a little bit slow but we love them.

Twas the night before Lion Scarf
and all through the flat
four people were sewing
for four giant cats…

Thanks to the boys for learning to sew (sorry I put a pic of you actually sewing on the web).

The Stratford and Newham Express have made Laura a star. What a fabulous red-haired Beckton woman she is! Click on the picture to read all about it.

I am absolutely exhausted!

It has been an amazing day and I have many stories to share, but for now I am going to toddle off to bed and sleep like I have never slept before. Safe in the knowledge that those four chilly Trafalgar Lions were warm for at least an hour this morning.

I promise to write it all up nicely soon.

If you were there then please, please drop us a line at stitchandb.london@googlemail.com and tell us what you thought, or comment right here on the blog.

The donation site is open at www.justgiving.com/londonlionscarf for donations and you can win a 50-foot fabulous Lion Scarf by donating just a bit to Cancer Research UK.

Thanks to everyone who came along to support us!

Lauren x