CHILDREN and animals filed into Blackpool Zoo for a service with a difference recently.
More than 500 children and their parents arrived for the Big Event for Little People -- a church service taking the theme of Noah's Ark.
The event, organised by the Blackburn Diocese, is usually held at Blackburn Cathedral. But the venue was changed after the Rev Michael Manley, vicar of St John's Church in Blackpool town centre, thought the zoo would be a good place to celebrate the Millennium year service.
An ark was built and filled with balloon animals during the service, conducted by Mary Binks, the children's work adviser to the Blackburn Diocese.
The zoo's Tony Williams said: "It was a great success. It is good to have links with the church and the zoo is now looking into a summer service for the children."
The children saw the rest of the animals in the zoo after the service and they also visited Dandy the reindeer and Father Christmas in his log cabin grotto.
Pictured here is Mr and Mrs Noah, alias Bill and Elaine Jones, greeting some of the 500 children at the Zoo.
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