Local Folk

Tableau by Patcham Junior School

By Pamela Bennett

First prize winners

The tableau ‘Soldiers of the Queen’ presented by Patcham Junior School, won first prize in the schools’ section of the town’s Coronation Parade of decorated vehicles presented by the deputy Mayor of Brighton, Miss Dorothy Stringer. Fourteen Life Guards dressed in red tunics, plumed hats and shining breast plates attended ‘Queen’ for the day, eight year old Priscilla Gridley. She wore a scarlet tunic with a blue sash, and a black tricorne hat. As she stepped out of a golden picture frame on Madeira Drive, she received cheers from hundreds of people who lined the front.

Judging held in Preston Park

The parade consisted of forty four brilliantly devised tableaux and hundreds had assembled in Preston Park to see the judging before they all set out on the route to Madeira Drive. Other notable entries were Queen’s Park Secondary School with four boys trying to operate a Titfield Thunderbolt, and Fred Chapman of Poplar Avenue, Hove who was a ginger-bearded angler pedalling a canoe rigged with ‘fish’ and beer bottles. The 50 minute procession went along London Road, North Street, Preston Street and King’s Road before arriving at their destination. They had caused a 20 minute traffic jam at Preston Circus which involved 30 buses!

The head of the procession

At the head of the procession as it arrived at Madeira Drive, was bus CAP 221 of the Brighton, Hove and District Bus Co. It was lit with an oblong of flickering red, white and blue lights and union jacks. Travelling inside was nine year old Howard Thompson of Hove who was passionate about buses and he’d ‘talked’ the driver into letting him ride on the bus.

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