Juggernauts Pip Scouts to Best Dressed Bed Award

Team 31, St John’s Juggernauts, won the 2015 Best Dressed Bed award in a tie-break from team 47, First Knaresborough Scouts, and team 58, First Scriven Scouts sponsored by CNG, in one of the closest contests for years. The theme was ‘Popular Culture from the Past 50 Years’ and was aimed at giving teams full rein to their creativity.

And the teams did indeed unleash their imaginations. Highly Commended rosettes were awarded to Globe Street Trotters, team 11, team 23, Stephenson’s Rockets, team 29 The Young Ones, Knaresborough Silver Band team 46, and team 52 Bed Hot chilli Peppers. But many more could have been handed out.

St John’s Juggernauts’ bed design commemorated Life on Earth nature documentaries and featured a huge mechanical orang-utan as its centre-piece. Boys carrying cameras, giraffes and tropical foliage completed the ensemble.

First Knaresborough Scouts chose the hit movie Junglebook as their inspiration, while First Scriven Scouts based their design on Batman and their bed was the famous Batmobile.

We had so many other superb designs: the heart-stopping lego Star Wars characters, and lego men and women as well. There were several Doctor Who teams featuring daleks, a K9 and police boxes. Music sparked the imaginations of several teams with Flower Power, Punk, Reggae, Elvis, a particularly chilling Thriller, plus other genres, being taken up with gusto.

Superheroes, sports teams, computer games, TV programmes and films were all explored.  We even found Wally, though a team of lady explorers looked most certainly lost!

The Most Entertaining Team was team 46, Knaresborough Silver Band, whose bed and team were accompanied by the rest of the Band.

It was all wonderful, made even more so by the relief that the teams, their fancy dress and their even fancier decorated beds were spared the rain. The real winners, though, were the crowds who were hugely entertained by the whole spectacle.

Thanks go also to all the stitchers, sewers, carpenters, painters, riveters, designers and supporters who lent so much of their time and ingenuity to make the 50th Bed Race such a memorable occasion. Apart from the 630 runners and riders of Bed Race, it is believed that many another 1,000 people lend their skills, knowledge and enthusiasm in support of the teams.

We’ve written much about Bed Race having become a family affair and on Saturday there was much for all to wonder at, young and old.