Former rock star Rick Wakeman unveiled a new mural during a 'party at the pavilion' in Diss Park at the weekend.The event on Saturday featured live bands, face painting, bungee run, hog roast and a host of other attractions.

Former rock star Rick Wakeman unveiled a new mural during a 'party at the pavilion' in Diss Park at the weekend.

The event on Saturday featured live bands, face painting, bungee run, hog roast and a host of other attractions.

It was the climax of a week of community events organised by Diss churches as part of the nationwide Hope08 initiative.

This encourages churches of all denominations to unite in running youth festivals, family events, schools work and lifestyle courses through 2008.

At Diss, volunteers assisted local people with a variety of household and maintenance tasks during the school half term as well as refurbishing the park pavilion in conjunction with the town council and repainting it with the mural.

Mr Wakeman cut a ribbon to officially unveil the mural in the pavilion where a band had been playing until he arrived.

He congratulated those involved and added: “I think this is absolutely brilliant. It is all to do with hope and it is amusing because you cannot see the word hope because it is behind the drum kit. Having been in bands for many years it is quite appropriate because there is not normally a lot of hope behind drummers.” He added: “This is something Diss Mere and the park can be very proud of.”