No Idea Why Tradition – Club Day Parade.

Every year on the second Saturday in June, you cannot enter Kirkham by car for about 2 hours in the morning as the roads get blocked off to allow the local churches to have a parade. All the local town’s have one; further away they are known as Field Day’s; but in Kirkham we call it Club Day.

Club Day was started, oh I don’t know, about a million years ago and is the day when the town gets together and celebrates whatever they feel like. The parade in the morning is all about the churches and their organisations and is a 3-4 mile circular stroll, which picks up churches along the way. My church, St. Michael’s is always the last to be picked up.

They all take banners showing their church or some relevant scene.

Banners are evil. They are big pieces of cloth and act like big pieces of cloth outside. They turn into sails or flap violently at the slightest breeze making it difficult to move them.

Yes I was on a banner team once. Never. Again.

Each church has a Rose Queen ( young girl and retinue picked out of the regular church goers (or member of the attached school), usually about 10 or 11 years old), who then has duties throughout the year – whenever a cute kid is needed for a photo op or fundraising purposes. I think she also has to host a dance of some description…

There are usually two for each church the new and the old, most queens are crowned by an important member of the church or community, either at the end of the parade or at a ceremony later in the day.

I was in the retinue one… I looked bad in lilac… and I had an awful perm. It’s a real shame I don’t have photos…

Of course, there are more kids in the parade usually the sunday school or youth group being tortured in some way (either death by mini banner…

…or death by large wooden thing to push).

And the local Guide/Scout groups walk too. There never appears to be many as the members have usually been pinched to do other things. But, the dedicated walk in uniform and try not to melt…

…such as the fools in 2nd Kirkham (St. Michael’s) Scout Group… like my brother!

Some of the churches are not happy torturing their congreagation with banner carrying – they try and kill them by balancing statues all the way round…

Of course, there’s always one church that will refuse to try…!

The oddest things, and unsung heroes, in the parade are the tableau’s… at least I think that’s the word for them.

These ‘volunteers’ stay in postion the whole time to potray a scene from church life/the Bible. This year’s were The Sacrament of Communion (come on. your knees are hurting just at the though of kneeling for hours)

and ‘Jesus is Condemned to Death’ mmmmmm… cheery.

There’s about an hour’s wait for the parade to come back round to Kirkham town centre, then St. Michael’s is in the lead and they do the solitary trudge back through. Of course by this time nearly everyone has forgotten there is a parade going on so they aren’t realy watching and it can be mortifying. So, all the parents who weren’t dragged in, and other church people stick around for a bit of encouragement.

As they turn the final corner and see the church looming it’s a sigh of relief and then a quick hymn outside church before drinks and home

This year the day was different. It was sunny. But local businesses helped out by giving the walker’s drinks and the kids ice pops to keep them going… I have done this walk 13 times, mostly as a choir member. That’s right two sets of clothing on and walking in hot hot weather. Nice. I have a burnt nose from the watching and waiting; but it’s all in a good cause! There used to be a carnival in the evening too – when the businesses and the other organisations would get their chance. That got killed as the insurance was too much. It’s a shame. .. The scout group used to win best float all the time!

[tags]Kirkham Club Day 2006, Church Parades, baners are evil, parades, English small town traditions[/tags]

~ by Bec on June 12, 2006.