Moving On Parade

Leaving primary school and moving onwards and upwards to your secondary school is a major event in every eleven year old's life. Thanks to the efforts of a group of local parents who six years ago set up the local arts based PATINA charity, every Year-Six child in the Lewes District gets the opportunity to celebrate this momentous occasion with a colourful, noisy, traffic-stopping parade through the centre of town. The event has a different theme every year, (this year’s is ‘Thank you for the Music’), and over the past few weeks a number of locally based artists have been going in to the twenty-one schools involved with the event, to help the kids bring their own costume and display ideas into glorious reality. Six of the schools have also been chosen to perform in the parade, and they have been learning to play a variety of homemade wood and metal instruments, so that they can add even more noise and colour to the event.

After all the work, today is finally the day when the rest of us get the opportunity to see the fruits of their creative labour. The parade starts at 12.30pm in the Paddock and then winds it way through the town and the High St, before returning to the Paddock for an hour long music festival featuring a selection of bands from the Starfish Youth Music project. So hit the High Street, Fisher Street or New Road at lunchtime to cheer them on their way. NW