Click for the Cookham News Front Page
Click for the Cookham News Front Page
|
COOKHAM MILLENNIUM PAGEANT |
||
|
The preparations had taken eighteen months, but the Cookham Millennium Celebrations had arrived, along with some of the worst weather that we have seen for a long time. "What do we do if it rains?" the organisers wondered. Two enormous marquees were put up, one for the Entertainment Zone and one for the Exhibition Zone. The Exhibition Marquee had started off quite small but seemed to grow and grow as more and more organisations wanted to have a display. |
||
|
|
||
| The day started with the opening of the Cookham Society noticeboard with Chris Barrie, of Red Dwarf and the Brittas Empire fame, cutting the tape. This was followed by skateboarding demonstrations, supplied by the River Church, on the Alfred Major Recreation Ground. This was attended by around sixty enthusiastic skateboarders. The ceremony was opened by Tony Prichard, Chairman of the Parish Council and Stan Jones. Stan had taken part in the 1948 Olympics in the Marathon and as it was the year of the Olympiad it was very appropriate that he should be the one chosen to be part of the opening ceremony. This was followed by the Millennium Pageant led by piper Hayley Cox all dressed up in her Scottish tartan and accompanied by a Scottish drummer. | ||
|
|
||
| The main arena hosted an array of entertainment, Line Dancing, Yoga Demonstrations, the Folk Dance Club got everyone to join in, there was Capoeira, a non combatant martial art, made famous by the Nokia adverts. There were rock bands and jazz, plus a tug o' war. | ||
|
|
||
| The Food and Drink Zone had an amazing assortment of stalls. The Cookham Youth Project had vegetable kebabs and milk shakes. The ingredients for this had been donated by Sainsbury, Waitrose, Tesco and Mr Reynolds from Maidenhead Market. Mandy Brar's Indian food stall had sold out by 2.15pm. There was organic pork, lamb and venison to cook yourself and piri piri chicken cooked for you. Cookham Twinning had a French café, complete with real French visitors from St Benoit, who seemed to take to the idea of sitting in the sun drinking wine. The WI Market had a stall and so did the Brownies with biscuit decorating. The WI Market also had a raffle for one of their boxes of goodies, that they will send to anywhere in the country. This was won by Mrs Dorothy Roxborough. In addition there were plants for sale from Julia Jarman. The Sailing Club were serving teas, Cookham Cream Teas no less, and you could have a sail as well. | ||
|
|
||
|
In the Exhibition marquee the WIs had all got together to have a joint exhibition of their work, Holy Trinity planted a Tree of Life, unfortunately in the main thoroughfare, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Cookham Arts Club put up some of their paintings as a taster for the August exhibition. Nearly thirty groups displayed with old photos from the Cookham Society and Odney Club and a photo quiz from the CPRE, everyone was able to reminisce about how Cookham used to be. |
||
|
|
||
| There was also something for the younger ones. The Methodist Rainbow Playgroup manned a Toddlers' crèche with lots of toys for the children to play with. There was face painting, a bouncy castle supplied by the Maidenhead Advertiser and an enormous assault course. As one parent said "the really nice thing is that it is all free". | ||
|
|
||
| The Entertainment Zone had twelve different entertainments, one every half an hour. The talent in Cookham knew no bounds. The sound engineers, led by Richard Wheeler, were slowly going mad as they had to set up something new every thirty minutes. They slowly got into it though. Dennis Boothman who was responsible for the lighting had everything under control though. There was a wide diversity of items on the programme ranging from Fiona Bunce's Belly Dancers, as Cookham Twinning's contribution, to the Horticultural Society's Gardeners' Question Time. | ||
|
|
||
| The Tarrystones enacted a poem of the last Millennium in twenty minutes, while Val Rice and Peter Hughes dressed as Dr Who, did one of the last Millennium in Cookham in the same time. Both got standing ovations. There was Genevieve Usher and Friends, the Cookham Bellringers and the East Berkshire Recorder Players with some beautiful pieces. The River Church did a very amusing Smith and Jones rendition written by the performers. The Entertainment finished with the Tarrystones doing a tableau of Dinner on the Lawn, in the final part all the actors 'froze' and the lights went onto John Spencer dressed as Stanley painting the scene. | ||
|
|
||
| To put on the Millennium Celebrations took an enormous amount of work from a huge amount of people mostly from Cookham. It was truly a community event that should be remembered for many years to come. | ||
|
|
||
|
If you have any photos or memories you would like to add about the Cookham Millennium Celebrations please contact liz@cookham.com or phone 525130. |
Click for the Cookham News Front Page
|
home
back