Photo gallery: Big Lunch gets neighbours talking at Grapes Hill Community Garden in Norwich

Local communities came together for a bite to eat and a natter when they took part in the fifth annual Big Lunch event.

The Big Lunch, started by the Eden Project in Cornwall in 2009, aims to get 'as many people as possible across the whole of the UK to have lunch with their neighbours annually on the first Sunday in June in a simple act of community, friendship and fun'.

Among those taking part at yesterday's event at the Grapes Hill Community Garden in Norwich were a folk duo and a children's entertainer who turned up and added some colour.

Pippa Saunders did face painting and balloon modelling, while Iceni Rising played on fiddles, guitar and violins for most of the lunch's three hours.

Fran Ellington, secretary of the Grapes Hill Community Garden Group, said about 50 people turned up during the course of the afternoon, and added: 'All the people who came really enjoyed themselves. It was a mix of local residents.

'That's the purpose of it – to get neighbours to meet and talk to each other.'

She added: 'There are people who are quite shy. Once they have made it or come with a friend they overcome that inhibition about sitting down with people they don't know.

'I think that's the philosophy of the Big Lunch. Living in an urban area, you don't tend to talk to your neighbours very much. We are quite a mixed area of private housing and social housing, and getting those two to meet is quite a nice thing.'

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