The 51st Spalding Flower Parade took place on 2 May 2009 and formed part of a festival that took place in Spalding in Lincolnshire over the course of the bank holiday weekend. The fact that the event was even staged was remarkable as the previous organising committee had decided that the cost of putting on the events outweighed the traffic that came to the town and decided to call it a day after parade number 50.
The town rallied round like never before and a new committee was formed to organise the event and they had about half the time to put on the show that had previously been the case. So the parade day came and the buses brought in the crowds, as usual, and the sun almost shone.
At the head of the parade, as usual, was the Romsey Old Cadets marching band. The Romsey Old Cadets are famous for completing the parade route in fancy dress and each year they have a different theme for the costume. This year we had a pied piper with his cat and a score of mice following him.
Following the marching band we had a float from a local radio station and then some classic tractors and a classic van representing the local garden centre. After the Budokai Academy there came one of the highlights of every parade and that was a cortège of classic bicycles. In the past the number of bikes on display had fallen but this year there was more than I ever remember seeing and the three penny farthings having a race down the street was something to see!
After the 13th Coventry Scout Band had passed there came the Moulton Chapel Float which was had a representation of the small chapel with a band playing in it. Miss Jersey then came by draped over the back of an open top car and then we were down to the main part of the parade which included the main floats made from tulip heads.
The floats had a theme of Floats Through The Years with a different float for each of the decades that the parade has been running. The 1960’s were represented by The Tortoise Family float, the 19701’s by Dougal from The Magic Roundabout, the 1980’s by the Australian Float from a World Wildlife Theme parade, the 1990’s by the spectacular Space Odyssey float and then the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang float from a few years ago made a welcome return. Finally the double length Flower Queen float came into view. The design of this doesn’t really change but it is always spectacular with the Flower Queen and her deputies taking the prominent places on the thrones at the back of the float.
This was then followed by a variety of marching bands and volunteer using the parade to raise some money for worthwhile charities such as the local hospice. We then came to the finale and what a finale it turned out to be. The Polka Dot Academy provided up to 180 children and adults to ride on a variety of floats and walk through the parade in costume. The theme of the finale was The Land Of Make Believe so we saw Princess Fiona, Sleeping Beauty, a float representing characters from the Wizard of Oz, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, the Lion King and Peter Pan.
And then after about an hour the Lion King was followed by another classic car and then the standard last vehicle of a police car brought up the rear and the parade from our vantage point was over. The parade lasted about another 2 hours as it wound its way through the streets of Spalding and finished at the local football ground.
All in all therefore a big congratulation should go to the organising committee and hopefully, with a bit more time in the preparation, parade number 52 will be even better.
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