Anticipating Peace Celebrations in Feilding

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 189, 11 August 1945, Page 2

Anticipating Peace Celebrations in Feilding

li l think that when it comes celebrations will have to be spontaneous and as far as I am concerned they will be,” declared Mr. T. L. Seddon (Mayor) when mentioning the matter of celebrating VP Day (Peace in the Pacific) at Thursday’s meeting of the Feilding Borough Council. “You cannot make such celebrations conform to order and we don’t want a repetition of what happened on VE Day,” he said, when the public and the children experienced so much doubt and confusion which robbed the occasion of much spontaneity. Mr. Seddon suggested that conditions relating to the war against Japan now appeared that peace would come at any time and the council should be prepared to provide for some fitting celebration of this event. There was no doubt that citizens would wish to celebrate and it was right and proper that they should do so. There was also the question of providing for the children because the celebration of peace would prove an important event in their young lives and the proceedings should be such as would ever be remembered. There would be holidays no doubt to mark the occasion and Feilding’s programme should include a gathering for children with sports and a procession. Returned servicemen, home servicemen and other organisations would no doubt wish to participate in any set programme apart from the spontaneous celebrations which would undoubtedy occur. His idea would be for a service of Thansgiving and then some comprehensive programme of celebration. Councillors were in accord with the idea of spontaneous celebrations and the need to prepare for such, and concurred in the idea of the Mayor, the deputy-Mayor and the Town Cicrk being a sub-committee empowered to draw up a suitable programme. This programme would, it was stated, anticipate public holida3 r s to mark the important and historical occasion.