05/05/2014 BBC Channel Islands News

Good evening. Coastguards are That's all from me and the team.

Good evening. Coastguards are warning boat owners to make sure

they have proper safety training after a couple had a lucky escape

when their new boat broke down off the Devon coast without any safety

equipment on board. Brixham coastguards helped rescue the man

and woman after the vessel became stranded off Plymouth, near Mount

Wise. The boat didn't even have a VHF radio. It means that, if he

doesn't have the right equipment in terms of communication, we don't

know where he is and have to send somebody out to go and find him, tow

him back in again. It ties up people who should be looking after people

who are possibly in serious trouble and need our assistance.

Business leaders estimate up to 10,000 jobs could be created across

Devon after the government announced that parts of the county, including

Torbay, have been recommended for Assisted Area Status. It means firms

in economically disadvantaged areas could benefit from more EU funding

and government help to recruit more staff.

Hundreds of people descended on the Rame Peninsula in South East

Cornwall today for a traditional May Day celebration. The Black Prince

flower boat procession made its way through the streets of Millbrook,

Kingsand and Cawsand. Alison Johns reports.

The villages at the Rame Peninsula are decked out in red and white for

the procession. Ratings from HMS Raleigh and Torpoint carry the Black

Prince flower boat through the streets before it is launched into

the sea at Cawsand later in the day. All the children, they start off,

the infant school then the juniors then the seniors, and they come and

dance every year and learn the maypole. It's just a wonderful

community spirit. It's lovely for the children to have their own

festival. It's important to keep the tradition going. Troops of Morris

dancers from across the South West follow the boat, with stops at local

hostelries across the way. They are joined by children from local

schools and by a host of town criers. Today is a special day for

Millbrook's town crier, who is recovering from cancer in his tongue

and neck. You're in full voice, are you, looking forward to it? Not

quite full voice but a lot of people are pleased about that. I shall be a

bit quieter! The children's prizes have been judged... This tradition

existed before the war, but died out when so many local men failed to

come home. It was revived 27 years ago and is now a major part of the

local calendar, as people banish winter and welcome in the spring.

A spring festival has also been held on the Somerset Levels today. After

the devastating floods, today's festivities at Kingsbury brought a

much`needed break from the recovery work, as well as raising money for

local charities. An extremely rare collection of

military vehicles will soon go under the hammer in Cornwall. Retired

farmer Bob White from Millbrook has been collecting and lovingly

restoring old World War Two transport vehicles for more than 25

years. There's already been international interest in the

retirement sale. And you can see more of his unique collection on the

BBC website. Sisters with a combined age of 200

have been celebrating their birthday with family and friends in North

Devon today. Freda and Doll are identical twins who were born on May

fifth 1914. Spotlight's Leigh Rundle was invited to the party.

They were born five minutes apart, but today arrived together in style.

They treated me like royalty. When the car pulled up, I said, I'm not

royalty, you know! You didn't know that the Rolls`Royce was picking you

up? No, I didn't know. They kept it all a secret. This is all

marvellous. Are you enjoying yourself? Yes, very nice. I didn't

expect all this. Among the guests, their two younger sisters, who are

both in their 90s. A full five generations of the family were here.

It is absolutely amazing that twins, identical twin sisters, live to be

100 years old. Even more so that two of their sisters are here. What do

they put their longevity down to? Well, their dad's home`grown veg. We

were brought up in the country, and we had all fresh veg, because money

was scarce in those days. Mum and Dad always used to give us plenty of

vegetables and that sort of thing. So I think we started in life well.

And it shows no sign of letting up. Congratulations. Let's take a look

at the weather now. Congratulations. Let's take a look

at the weather After a lovely dry weekend in the South West the rain

is setting in. It is moving steadily and by tomorrow morning it will have

gone through but this week is more unsettled. There will be showers and

longer spells of rain and breezy at times. The winds are from the

south`west, low pressure takes charge of the weather in the next

few days, lines are showers coming our way. One area of rain moves over

tonight that will be gone by the morning, temperatures down into

single figures and for tomorrow morning we should get some sunshine,

but then the showers progress through the morning and into the

afternoon and may form lines, so some of us could get some quite wet

weather, temperatures up to about 15 degrees. The outlook is for further

sharp words and cloudy conditions on Wednesday, more persistent rain

setting in on Thursday and more showery into Friday.

That's all from us. Don't forget the last in the current series of Late

Kick Off starts on BBC One at If you have enjoyed an entire

weekend of fine weather it is highly likely next weekend you will not.

The weather is changing, it is turning more unsettled. Breezy this

week, especially in the West. Showers but not raining all the

time. Occasionally it will be dry and bright. Rain has been touring

with part of the UK through the weekend. Some heavy bursts pushing

eastwards across the UK for the rest of the night. Some clear spells

developing in the west later. Nowhere is particularly cold. The

North East Scotland Scotland will push away, though it was still

remain in Sheffield