Meet the Floral Designers
More than 35 floral designers from around East Yorkshire have all volunteered their skills and expertise to help the Minster put on its spectacular Jubilee Flower Festival. They’re key members of the team brought together by Kevin Hara, the Minster’s flower coordinator and organiser of this weekend’s big event.
I’ve been speaking to three of them to find out what flower arranging means to them and how they feel about being part of the first flower festival at the Minster for 20 years.
Janet Ducker’s fascination with flowers began when her father-in-law taught her everything he knew about wedding flowers. He was part of the family that runs Langlands Garden Centres and inevitably once Janet married into the family, she couldn’t help but be drawn into the business of flowers.
She’s a member of Driffield Flower Club and prior to that was a founder member of Pocklington Flower Club. She feels very honoured and privileged to have been asked by Kevin to help design arrangements for the festival. Working to a Royal theme, she says there is going to be a real ‘wow’ factor when people walk through the doors of the Minster. With the scent of thousands of flowers filling the church, she also hopes visitors will feel like they’ve walked into the middle of summer.
Joyce Shaw was already helping with flowers at the Minster over 50 years ago! Now at the grand age of 83½ she’s been delighted to come out of ‘floral retirement’ to help with the latest flower festival. She says she has always loved flowers. She recalls picking buttercups and other wildflowers and arranging them in empty fishpaste jars at the age of 3. At school, she had the job of arranging pots of flowers in the headmistresses office and she loved flower pressing too.
She’s excited and a bit daunted by the responsibility of working on the 2022 flower festival. She says she doesn’t have the energy she once did, but she’s enlisted her daughter’s help to get all her floral arrangements set up. And having been involved in 5 previous flower festivals over the last 38 years, she’s very excited to be included in this one too.
Rachel Kirkwood is also a member of Driffield Flower Club – and Beverley Flower Club too. But she wasn’t always interested in flowers. She remembers that when her mum, a keen gardener, originally tried to encourage her into flower arranging, she dismissed the idea as something that was only for old people. However, about seven years ago, some friends persuaded her to go along to the Flower Club at Hayton – and she’s never looked back. Not only does it appeal to her creative streak, but she says it’s also really sociable and great fun.
She stresses that she is just one of a group of people from the Driffield Flower Club that are all contributing their services and skills. Although she’s never done a flower festival before, she knows the Driffield Club will work as a supportive team. Their remit from Kevin is to create tall columns of flowers, like soldiers, to add to the Royal Jubilee theme.
The Jubilee Flower Festival takes place from Friday 1 – Monday 4 July. And for people wanting a more exclusive, up-close view of the magnificent arrangements throughout the Minster, there’s also a preview evening on Thursday 30 June. Tickets are limited for this opening event, where canapes and drinks will also be served as guests view the floral displays.
Tickets for the main event from Friday 1 July through to Monday 4 July cost £6 can be purchased online or at the door of the Minster on the day.
Tickets for the preview evening, where numbers will be limited, cost £12. These tickets must be bought in advance of the event through the Minster website.
Emma Hetherington