Colourful pageant

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33386, 19 November 1973, Page 2

Colourful pageant

The release of hundreds of colourful balloons—one of them carrying a voucher for two tickets to the opening of the Commonwealth Games—was a fitting climax to an exciting morning for thousands of children who watched Haywrights’ twenty-fifth annual Christmas pageant in Christchurch on Saturday. Starting at 10 a.m. from Cranmer Square, the floats in the half-hour procession treated children to reallife images of storybook characters—the Old Lady in the Shoe, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin’s Lamp, Jack and the Beanstalk, and many others. Other floats carried the Haywrights’ childreri’s personality, Aunt Haysi, a model of the Commonwealth Games stadium, and last, but certainly not least for the children, Santa Claus and his reindeer. Between the floats came clowns, athletes, acrobats, bands, and marching girls, who all helped to add to the sense of occasion. Many families arrived as early as 9 a.m. to get a close park and some latecomers had to walk as far as two miles from their cars to the procession route. Twenty minutes after the procession most of the spectators had gone and the problem of crowded footpaths had turned instead into one of long traffic queues. Only a relatively small number stayed to watch a final ceremony in Cranmer Square. At the ceremony, Mr R. S. Scott, chairman of the organising committee of the Commonwealth Games, was presented with the money collected from those watching the pageants, and the Governor-General (Sir Denis Blundell) fired a pistol to signal the release of the balloons.