goodbye gromits!

Yesterday was the final day of Bristol’s wonderful “Gromit Unleashed” trail.

Over the past 10 weeks, thousands (literally) of very happy, smiling people – NOT just parents/grandparents(!) and their children/grandchildren – have been travelling around the city (and a few miles beyond) in search of 80 beautifully painted, 5 foot high Gromits.
Aardman Animinations/Wallace+Gromit’s Grand Appeal joined forces to organise this wonderful art event (and supported by local businesses and communities) to raise funds for Bristol’s Children Hospital.  All the Gromits will be auctioned off on 3 October.
The only negative note, sadly, were the three Gromits that were vandalised during the course of the trail (no doubt by drunken yobs)… I suspect that, if these idiots had been caught, Bristol’s public would have welcomed the reintroduction of the stocks for general humiliation by rotten vegetables… and, no doubt, people would have turned out in great numbers to queue for the privilege!
However, this negative was massively outweighed by all the positives. We know lots of the local artists who painted the Gromits – and an added bonus for us were the two that Ruth painted (on behalf of wind-up radio man Trevor Bayliss and hat designer/maker Philip Treacy) and also the mini-Gromit (for one of the Aardman directors) that was a lovely figurehead for one of Bristol’s ferries.
It’s been just brilliant… what’s going to be next?
PS: you might recall the successful “wow! gorillas” public art trail in Bristol from two years ago (yes, I realise that that there are other similar trails around the country!).
PPS: the photograph shows the 72 Gromits that I managed to see (I feel just slightly guilty that I saw more than any of our grandchildren!).