Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Rose Queen


Taken by a newspaper photographer and published in the Bolton Evening News in I believe 1972. My sisters and I were in the Rose Queen Parade. Here, I am telling my sisters to act like ladies and stop messing about. All the kids in our Sunday School were involved. Every church in town had their own Royal Ensemble, and on the big day, all came together for a big parade of Queens, Princesses, Prince Charmings, Ladies in Waiting, Train bearers, flower girls and the like.
Recently in the next town, My dear friend Deanna had her daughter in the May Day Parade, as a princess in the May day Parade.
Does your community do similar thing and were you ever involved in anything like this?

7 comments:

Fred said...

You look very serious. I hope they listened.

Our version of a parade here in Tampa occurs both on land and on the water. Here's a summary of our annual festival.

Chastity said...

That is a great picture!

We don't have May Day parades, but there are parades for certain holidays. I have never been involved in any, but I've thought about taking Lila to see one sometime.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't seem like such along time since that photo was taken. I don't know if you remember but Cathy had walked into a garden swing that morning and had seven stitches under that petal bonnet. She was determined not to miss the parade, so luckily the hat covered the mess. She suffered no after effects and spent the afternoon hanging upside down on her chair. You were all siting on a stage, supposedly in some stage of decorum, but Cathy decided to do acrobatics on the chair.

Those were the days, thank goodness for photos to jog the memory as we recall such quaint customs. Whilst we were in England, we happened to be travelling through a small village where May day was being celebrated. Twenty four little girls and twenty little boys were doing country dancing and then maypole dancing. It was lovely to see those old traditions being kept up. mom

Anonymous said...

I was in the Helston Flora Day, in Helston, Cornwall, England, many moons ago. Here's a link to it Helston Flora Day. I think I was about seven at the time. I was in the children's dance (there are three dances). It's led by a band, and you dance in and out of some of the houses as well as in the streets. It's also called the Furry dance (fu-rry, not furry). One of each couple had to be Helston-born, and my partner was. It was a real honour to dance in it. We had to wear white dresses, and the colours of the school in our head-dresses. It takes place on May 8th every year (or thereabouts).

Outhouse Capital of Canada said...

I have colour slides of the mayday parades somewhere, I will dig them out

Hi

I am still sorting through my 4000 plus pics to see which ones to post so I can get back to blogging.
We are making headway with the weeds, the compost is now about four feet above the side of the box plus a truckload to the dump.

Curtis said...

Stopping by and waving my hand and trying to catch up on some of my reading. That was a cool looking bridge. Have a great week.

Anonymous said...

hi my name is Julie and i was Rose Queen in Bromley Cross Bolton in 1955 i can still clearly remember the day , i was only 15yr and i was terrified of giving my speach ,i did get through it, but even today i dont like standing up and speaking in front of people .