VICTORY DAY

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1946, Page 8

VICTORY DAY

ARRANGEMENTS .FOR LONDON CELEBRATIONS PROCESSIONS AND ' PAGEANTS [K.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.] LONDON, May 29. Ten million people are expected io crowd into central London, on Victory Day, and the London Transport Board, the London police, and the traffic authorities are making* the fullest preparations to cope with the tremendous influx with all the problems it entails. Buses, trams, and trains on the majority of the London routes will run to special schedules all Victory Day until late at night. The London Transport Board is commissioning more than 1500 additional buses and trams and special arrangements have been made by the police to control traffic and parking. Fifty special 8.8. C. commentators will describe the processions and scenes along the routes. Descriptions of the celebrations will be broadcast to the world in 20 different languages, During the night pageant on the Thames between the Hungerford and Vauxhall bridges, a R.A.F. helicopter will hover over the river and a description broadcast from the machine will be relayed through loudspeakers lining the city streets. Led by a veteran Hurricane, a survivor of the Battle of Britain, 300 aircraft, including bombers, fighters coastal reconnaissance machines, and the latest jet-propelled types, will fly in an aerial procession extending 60 miles at a height 500 ft above London’s rooftops to the saluting base. The official programme for Victory Day has now been issued by the Stationery Office, and every school child in Britain will Receive a special memento card bearing a message from the King. Tiie Royal procession will leave Buckingham Palace at 10.10 a.m., drive via Marble Arch, Oxford street, Charing Cross road, Northumberland avenue, Bridge street, and Whitehall to the saluting base in the Mall. His Majesty, accompanied by the Queen and the two Princesses, will drive in a State landau accompanied by an escort of Household Cavalry. Before the arrival of the King the crowds near the saluting base will watch a marching display by massed pipers of Scottish and Irish regiments. The mechanised procession will follow a considerably longer route than the marchers, but the two parades will link up in Parliament square and proceed together down Whitehall to the Mall. Allied and Imperial Chiefs of Staff will drive along the route of the mechanised procession, arriving at the saluting base shortly before the King. All the United Kingdom and Empire units and many of the Allies will be represented in the procession, which will also include representatives of the civilian defence forces, including women bus conductors and canteen workers. The only notable abstention Is that of the Russians. The river display will be heralded by the arrival of the King at the steps on the terrace of the House of Parliament. His coming will be saluted by 80 searchlights and the playing of the National Anthem through 500 loudspeakers. Public interest in the celebrations at first was inclined to be apathetic, but now is markedly increasing, and window seats along the procession route are being sold for as much as .£2O,