New Year's Day Parade in London
London, like so many other large cities, has long held an annual New Year's Day parade which we attended this year. While the weather was crisp, it wasn't really cold -- at least for the first two hours. During the third hour the temperature dropped noticably and the wind increased quite a bit. We persevered into the third hour, but called it quits a bit before the finish.
While London is a very large city, the parade is not on nearly as impressive a scale as the Macy's parade in New York or the Rose Parade in Pasadena. In fact, if it weren't for American high school marching bands, who participated in unexpectedly large numbers, the parade would be a great deal shorter. Frankly, the American bands represented most of the best units; and, collectively, they provided almost all of the best music. However, don't get the idea that this more "intimate" parade isn't still a lot of fun. Many of the marching units are so typically British -- highy amateur and having a lot of fun. And, this being Britain, there were a lot of historical references, with marchers in medieval and other dress. This year's parade had a "London in World War II" theme and there were lots of American military vehicles, mostly owned by Brits who lovingly restore and operate them.
There were over 500 American cheerleaders and dancers in the parade -- part of an organization called Universal Cheerleading/Dance Association (UCA or UDA). In fact there were so many, that they appeared as about 4 different units at different parts of the parade. As already mentioned, the American high school bands make up a large part of the parade (by the way, our vote for the best one was the school from Grove City Ohio -- great marching and wonderful music). Another very large American contingent was a group of ladies called the Red Hat Society. We've looked them up on the internet and it's an organization of "over 50" ladies who get together to have fun with gusto -- and a large number of them were having fun in London. We couldn't help but reflect on the fact that the parade had to include at least 5 to 8 thousand Americans and we wondered if Londoners realize what an economic boost all those hotel rentals represented. To say nothing of the thousands of bake sales and raffles there must have been in the US to finance all these groups coming to London for the parade. There are some photos at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/Other.
While London is a very large city, the parade is not on nearly as impressive a scale as the Macy's parade in New York or the Rose Parade in Pasadena. In fact, if it weren't for American high school marching bands, who participated in unexpectedly large numbers, the parade would be a great deal shorter. Frankly, the American bands represented most of the best units; and, collectively, they provided almost all of the best music. However, don't get the idea that this more "intimate" parade isn't still a lot of fun. Many of the marching units are so typically British -- highy amateur and having a lot of fun. And, this being Britain, there were a lot of historical references, with marchers in medieval and other dress. This year's parade had a "London in World War II" theme and there were lots of American military vehicles, mostly owned by Brits who lovingly restore and operate them.
There were over 500 American cheerleaders and dancers in the parade -- part of an organization called Universal Cheerleading/Dance Association (UCA or UDA). In fact there were so many, that they appeared as about 4 different units at different parts of the parade. As already mentioned, the American high school bands make up a large part of the parade (by the way, our vote for the best one was the school from Grove City Ohio -- great marching and wonderful music). Another very large American contingent was a group of ladies called the Red Hat Society. We've looked them up on the internet and it's an organization of "over 50" ladies who get together to have fun with gusto -- and a large number of them were having fun in London. We couldn't help but reflect on the fact that the parade had to include at least 5 to 8 thousand Americans and we wondered if Londoners realize what an economic boost all those hotel rentals represented. To say nothing of the thousands of bake sales and raffles there must have been in the US to finance all these groups coming to London for the parade. There are some photos at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/Other.
posted by Chuck and Kathi Calvano @ 3:35 PM
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