Huge cake will go from Church Stretton to Falklands vets
It weighs 60kg, will require the help of the local funeral directors to get down the steps and a specially sponsored car to get it to its destination.
The whopping cake has been baked in Telford and put together in Church Stretton by former Royal Marine Derek Harvey, ready to take up to Arbroath in Scotland for a reunion of veterans who served in the Falklands war.
Mr Harvey, who served in the conflict, has had a second career as a chef and chocolateer, so it was natural that he has been called upon to make the three and half by two and a half foot cake that will take pride of place at the trrops' 35th anniversary reuniion on June 10 – even if it means he will have to take it about 380 miles, roughly six and a half hours, up to Scotland with him.
"The cake is going up on Thursday," said Mr Harvey, 68.
"Because it weights 60 kilos (132lbs) I've got Morris' Funeral Care people in Church Stretton giving me a hand to carry it down, because we live right up the top of Clive Avenue and have to get it down a lot of steps," he said.
"Because of the size I have used a beech work top because otherwise the cake would split in two, but that's heavy as it is.
"I am also lucky to have a sponsored BMW X1 from the Shrewsbury dealership to take it up in, because my car is not big enough," he said. He said that came about because Mark Schofield, one of the sales managers at the Rybrook dealership, was also a Navy veteran.
Mr Harvey himself served in the Marines between 1964 and 1990 and is now welfare officer for the Royal Marines Association in Shropshire.
He said: "After I left I had a second career making chocolates. I was production manager at Cadbury's and later got head-hunted by Nestle in York."
He said he had also been among a handful of chefs that catered for the British teams in three Olympic Games and two World Cups, alongside his military career.
He was stationed in Arbroath when the Falklands war broke out in 1982, he said.
"People were just going on holiday when the recall started – we thought it was an April fool's joke at first," he said.
The conflict lasted just 29 days, but those involved have reunions to this day he said, staggered by unit across the end of May and June. The last one was in 2012, for the 30th anniversary.
He said he was also taking 250 individual slices for those attending the reunion to eat, and in fact the cake itself may simply be for display on the day – though it would not go to waste as it would be donated to a children's hospice if not eaten on the day.
