FOOD went flying as first-timers and old hands alike took part in the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championship.

The unusual tradition sees competitors flinging one by one three of the cooked stocking-covered puddings at a pile of Yorkshire puddings placed on a scaffold ledge 20ft up.

Rules stipulate contestants must place one foot on a grate lying 15ft from the target and all throws must be underarm.
Whoever knocks off the most of the dozen batter-based stack scoops the £100 prize.

Hannah Cafferky, aged 20, of Westhoughton, said: "I've never been before. 
"I have got no technique – it's just 'hope for the best'.
"I wasn't very good. My dad's a roofer so perhaps I should be better."

Esme Glossop, aged 8, and her sister Isla, aged 9, from Bolton, were two of the many children who lobbed the Bury delicacy upwards as part of the junior competition that boasts a lower plinth of puddings to aim for.
Mum Liz Wren told them: "You were both quite close so it wasn't a total disaster."

The championship is organised by Stubbins Community Trust and takes place outside The Oaks pub in Bridge Street in Ramsbottom.

It was revived in 1984 based on a Victoria-era contest inspired by a War of the Roses story about warring Yorkshire and Lancashire factions throwing rotten food at one another when they ran out of ammunition.