Stourport Procession

I arrived fashionably late, but hadn't missed much as I was greeted by the plaintive cries of cars penned beyond their reason. They'd stopped the traffic on the town side of the bridge causing it to trail through the roadworks gumming them up, at last a copper came down to quieten things down. The procession was hitting High Street by the time I got there so I made my way through the throng and nipped down York Street to head it off. Traffic was backed up along here too and this meant Lion Hill was also stalled, people had tried to cut off the corner and were themselves now trapped.

The procession made its way down Lion Hill past the stalled traffic and got stuck rounding the corner. It got past the junction with everyone trailing behind and set up camp at the Civic Centre. I headed that way and took a couple of snaps of the funfair before my rechargable batteries conked out on me. One purchase later and I got back in time for the end of the carols.

Oh and on the way to the buy I noticed a laminated A4 piece of paper attached to a lamppost in New Street detailing when the roads would be closed, so that would be the pedestrians notified; personally I think it would have been better to tell the drivers instead.

So anyway back to the service. I switched to movie mode and panned the crowd, quite a few had turned out, surprising as it had been raining before the procession had started and had only trailed off just as it was beginning. Aiming for a better vantage point I switched sides and took another film. Halfway through, after some movement alerted me, I realised I was focused on the wrong thing. I was looking at the brightly lit people at the ground floor when I should have been paying attention to the dim black blobs on the balcony above.

After whipping up the crowd for the countdown the two Christmas trees were turned on, I panned around; nope that was it. After that people crossed over the road, dodging the leaving traffic in St. Martins Way, to the funfair; or just left. I didn't stay long after that and heading back just as it was starting to rain again.

Okay a lot of people turned up, the procession was good, the traffic could have been handled better. A bit of organisation on the balcony would have been in order and some lights in the car-park. Some temporary barriers put up across the side of the funfair would have directed people to the safe entrance (as opposed to sliding down the short but steep bank) and preventing parking in the top smaller car-park next to the steps (if possible) as people were getting jammed up there making their way down. As was foretold the cafes were open, but of course they were all on the other side of the funfair next to the main road. All in all it was pretty good, just a little more forward planning needed.

Update Turning on of the lights video now with sound :)