St George's Day Parade 2010
In 2009, as we were passing by Clifton Park in the nearest Sunday to St George's Day, we noticed that there was a parade and march to celebrate England's patron saint. Now St George's Day celebrations are pretty thin on the ground, in fact nearly non-existent so I took particular notice of this. In 2010 I have kept my eyes peeled for details and advertisements about this but have found information equally thin on the ground. If it wasn't for some hoo-haa about paying for road closures with Rotherham Council stumping up the necessaries in 2010 I wouldn't have known anything about it. A quick perusal of the Advertiser gave me the times of the road closures and from that I was pretty well able to work out the timings.
The parade is organised by Rotherham Scouts. Various groups and troops of uniformed children and accompanying adults mustered in Clifton Park. The Police Band were present. The parade commenced about 2.15pm, did an eyes-left past the Cenotaph, marched down Doncaster Gate, attended a service at Rotherham Minster and ended up at the Town Hall. Quite a few other people followed in their wake. It was a very good turn-out. Clifton Park was full of interested parties, mostly families.
It seems a pity that the town, the county and the country can't do a bit more to celebrate St George.