Thousands Saw Floral Procession In Timaru

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28821, 16 February 1959, Page 15

Thousands Saw Floral Procession In Timaru

(From Our Own Reporter)

TIMARU, February 15. A disturbing feature of the otherwise satisfactorily conducted and spectacular South Canterbury centennial floral profession in Timaru yesterday was die inclusion for part of the distance of several midget marching teams.

The weather was hot, and although the teams put on a brave front, by the time they had reached Maori Park after a march pf about a mile and a half, many were at the point of exhaustion. The final event in Timaru’s “Floral Week,” the procession attracted thousands of spectators, from Domain avenue, where a guard of honour provided by cadets of Timaru Boys’ High School stepped put with rifles at the slope to the lush-green slopes at Maori Park, where the 40 magnificent floats were assembled for public inspection, brass and pipe bands, marching teams, trick cyclists, and clowns, who provided a mar di gras atmosphere, took part in the colourful cavalcade.

The centennial queen (Miss Mary Rose Unwin) headed the procession, accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting, in a landau drawn by four grey horses. The landau was preceded 'by the parade, marshal (Mr J. Cronin), with his aide-de-camp. Riding high in a sea of blue hydrangeas, a model of the Strathallan, the first direct immigrant ship to arrive at Timaru, created considerable interest. Of special interest to the hun-

dreds of children who lined the procession route was a marigolddecorated float representing a shoe, from which an “Old Woman” dominated her many children who peeped out the windows. Chinese lanterns swung gaily as a pagoda-type float preceded another entry on which an Elizabethan 4 ‘Drake” played a rubber of bowls. Other elaborate floats included one on which a girl was swinging beneath a floral rainbow, a vehicle ingeniously decorated with red and white paper flowers, a replica of Timaru’s wishing .well, a chariot, Robert Burns’s cottage and a tableau in which a wallaby “rubbed shoulders” with deerstalkers.

Working exhibits included floral ducks, and a gracious white swan was the figurehead for a further magnificent float. The entries paid tributd to South Canterbury in its centennial year, but there was perhaps no greater tribute than that of the Christchurch City Council’s Reserves Department, with its pyramidal float decorated with the city’s coat of arms.