Light The North

CLAN Cancer Support Light the North

By Tracy Chalmers

The CLAN ‘Light the North’ trail was the latest art trail in Scotland following the successful Dolphin and Oor Wullie trails from past years. Light the North initiative saw 50 large lighthouses designed by artists across the UK placed in Moray, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Orkney and Shetland. Along with the large lighthouses local schools, community groups and local artists, decorated 90 mini lighthouse sculptures to go on public display throughout the area to widen the trail they were known as ‘Little Lights’.

The trail ran from August to October where members of the public could download the map and go on a lighthouse hunt. This encouraged people to go out and explore their local area and beyond by making it a family day out. Social media was flooded with people on days out using the hashtags #lightthenorth and #lighthousetrail showing the lighthouses they had found.

Once the trail came to an end all the lighthouses were gathered together at Gordon Barracks in Aberdeen for the farewell weekend. This gave the ‘lighthouse hunters’ an opportunity to finish off their trail maps, finding the lighthouses they were unable to get to or just a nice day out to look round the lighthouses all together as well as donating to the amazing charity.

Following the farewell weekend the 50 large lighthouses were transported to Thainstone Mart for the grand auction. Bids on the evening were taken from the floor as well as online where the auction was streamed live. The most expensive lighthouse was purchased for £13500 by the Portsoy 75 Club who raised the funds from a Crowdfund to enable them to return their Lighthouse back to Portsoy. Even a blank little lighthouse raised an amazing £1200. People really did dig deep at the auction as the final total that was raised came to an amazing total of £324,200 which will go a long way to fund the services CLAN cancer support provide to both cancer sufferers and their families throughout the North East of Scotland and the Northern Isles.