The fifth annual Falmouth Spring Festival gets underway today and in light of Sunday’s tragedy, the event has been dedicated to the memory of PC Andy Hocking who had been due to get involved with his wife, Sally.

The first event of the festival is the popular Paint the Town Yellow Day today, with around 200 children from local schools team up with university student ambassadors, volunteers and staff from festival sponsors, Tempus Leisure to distribute thousands of daffodils throughout the town.

All those involved gathered at Events Square this morning where they will gave a minute’s applause in tribute to PC Hocking before heading off into town to either decorate shop windows or hand out daffodils to shoppers.

The next major events of the festival will take place on Friday and Saturday when groups of volunteers will tackle around 20 different areas of the town as part of the Spring Clean Days.

The Falmouth Bay Residents’ Association will be holding its spring litterpick on Saturday when members are inviting other like-minded people to join them at Pendennis Point. 

The group will meet at the Ships and Castles car park at 10am and will spend the next 90 minutes scouring the area, removing litter and generally giving the point “a bit of a spruce up.”

Elsewhere in town, Falmouth Civic Society members will set to work at Greenbank Gardens, another set of volunteers led by Sue Grigg will tackle the terraces above the town centre and members of Falmouth and Exeter students’ union, FXU, will be planting at Dell woods, which is where PC Hocking and Sally had been planning to lend their support.

Other events planned during the festival, which runs until March 29, are the half marathon, Run Falmouth on Sunday (March 15), Fitness and Games on The Moor on March 21, the Falmouth Spring Flower Show at the Princess Pavilion on March 21 and 22 and the Folk and Cider Fayre at Events Square over the weekend of March 27 to 29. 

In addition there are various guided walks, workshops and exhibitions – for full details visit www.falmouth.co.uk or pick up a programme.