City slide

Only days after crowds lined the street for a Royal Giant celebration, and only days after a Civil war army marched from Handbridge, Bridge St was closed for the day to accommodate an inflatable water slide, bringing some fun to the city as Summer ebbed away. Entry for the slide was via a paid ballot, with money being split between two local charities: Babygrow – aiming to raise £3 million to build a new neo natal unit at the Countess of Chester hospital , and Sanctuary for Veterans, who provide veterans and their families “respite and rejuvenation” in Tarporley and help ex soldiers realise their potential.

“VIPs and guests down first” my security contact told me. A rumour about Mayor Deynem briefly circulated , but he failed to appear, on a day that was sadly short of dignitary involvement. Some of the first sliders were the Water Babies team , with the first hour being particularly busy. The sun was shining and the Dee106.3 team soon arrived to provide music and commentary.

Sliders after a run up, or a push from the helpful events team, travelled down the steep street into a splash pool full of foam, emerging like the Ghostbusters after the battle with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man

Logistics manager Harriet Walker, of the organisers, Expedition Wise told me that, “Usually we do a lot of charity challenges, cycle, trekking challenges, so this is quite unique for us…as a whole this year, we’ve raised over a million pounds for charity!”

Other notable sliders included the Super Mario brothers, and the Brio leisure bear. Slider Ceri Marie Humphries told the blog that it was “so much fun, truly something to add to anyone’s bucket list!”

The Dee team took their turn on the slide:

The “king of the slide” Robert Biddle, who went down 13 times told me that it was “Brilliant, absolutely awesome, best thing I’ve ever done in my life!” He has a justgiving page for Babygrow at https://www.justgiving.com/Robert-Biddle/

Rhiannon Thompson of Expedition Wise , shortly after riding the slide herself : ” We just wanted to provide a fun event, something which is a bit different , get the community involved! The sun’s been shining and a lot of people have had a great time.All in all we had about 300 , a few people got to go more than once . Once you’re wet you might as well keep going !

“To organise an event like this , you’re talking a minimum of about 9 months, so we’ve done a lot of work in the background, planning , logistics. A lot goes into it, its been great!” She said that ” this is our first 100 metre giant water slide event so we thought we would debut it in Chester!”