June 17, 2006: The most striking thing about today's village parade was not just the brilliant sunshine but the sheer numbers of people who turned out. And not just ordinary people, either. Most villagers of a certain age, whose experience as parents of pre-teen children is a bit of a distant memory, recall Village Day as a bit of a damp squib. That is not just because they remember either a series of soakings or at least a dismal trudge through the Barn Hall Field's incomparably-sticky mud. It's also because the numbers taking part in the ceremonial part of the day hardly justified the worry of devising the kids' costumes.
In those days, someone recalled at the end of today, there were barely enough kids to fill a float. There were no floats this year, at least of the motorised kind. But the parade was so different, in so many other ways. Thanks perhaps to climate change the weather was much better than we were used to. The centenary Union flags along the High Street added an honest pride to the atmosphere that previous generations' dingy strings of bunting never had. But the numbers of children in the parade were a constant, unending, jaw-dropping delight, and the size of the crowd cheering them on scarcely less impressive. It was an atmosphere you wished someone could bottle.
At one point former councillor Michael Anderson, by tradition and inclination the commentator at every year's proceedings, began, as he watched each new set of arrivals from his vantage point at the top of the Barn Hall Field, to despair of ever seeing the procession finish. 'Is that the end, are they the last?' he kept asking, to be told, inevitably, that no, they were not.
What this tells us is that, though we like to think of Bookham as a village, the community it serves is much larger. It also reveals the scale of the challenge we face if we are to do our duty by this wonderful tide of new villagers. Are we willing to provide them not just with the schooling they need, but with the room they need to play, the facilities they need to grow into what what they need to do and, above all, the safety that allows them to live to collect the rewards that growing up in this wonderful place might offer?
One rare sour note leaves room for doubt. Many were asking why the High Street was cluttered with cars on the great day. This isn't just a matter for the Bookham Community Association (BCA), whose management was another triumph ' it's a matter for those who chose to leave the cars there. As it was, the parade had half the width of the street available and the onlookers on the east side of the High Street could only cheer them over the top of the car roofs.
As a symbol of the way our community is run, however, you couldn't match it. Too often, most of what happens in Bookham seems to be dictated by the needs of its drivers rather than those of an age to take part in the parade.
Against that, however, two adult organisations really made an effort. One was local estate agency John Wadsworth which showed its usual commitment to the village by taking a stall on the Barn Hall Field. The other was Lloyds Bank, which opened on a Saturday to welcome Bookham's festival goers with a drink. Not often you get anything for nothing, especially from a bank and, on a scorching hot day, the gesture was mighty welcome.
Last modified 26jun06
The BCA website has loads of Village-Day pictures. Click the link then click 'village day' in the left column of the BCA home page.
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