SCHOOLCHILDREN in the Penrith area can look forward to some tall tales complete with carnival giants thanks to Heritage Lottery funding secured by Cumbria County Council’s children’s services.

Extended services advisor Dawn Hurton secured £49,000 grant funding to bring schools in the town and surrounding villages together to celebrate the rich storytelling heritage of the area on to the streets on May Day.

The project has been developed in partnership with Penrith Action for Community Transition (PACT.)

A local May Day tall storytelling custom will be re-established as a new event. Children and families will draw upon the lives and times of people within living memory to create new place-based legends.

Identifying “giant spirits” in each community, participants will develop an exaggerated tale for telling on the streets about how their giant saved the day.

To contribute to the spectacle carnival giants and props will create remarkable visual images to the giant stories. Passers by will help judge how believable the stories are.

The award will provide children and young people with opportunities to unearth and share local stories stories which may have survived for thousands of years. Through these stories, the school groups will learn about the people, customs and traditions of their community and how they connect with their local landscape.

Dawn said: “I am absolutely delighted that this project can go ahead because the schools are very enthusiastic about it. I hope the story giants will bring people together and generate energy through our young people to focus on this unique place where we live. The aim is to motivate and inspire us all to value the things that are part of the DNA of our place and to build on those things.”

A PACT spokesman said: “Storytelling and myth making in general is an essential part of getting any community ownership in a process.

“Creating an alternative future for the town, which is not simply buying into the ‘business as usual’ model, is creating a new common story and we hope that the project will engage more people in decision making about the future of the town.”