Hargausiumei: The 2015 Brighton Festival Lifts Off

The 49^th annual Brighton Festival – three weeks of music, theatre, dance, circus, art, literature, debate and events – kicked off today with the traditional Children’s Parade.

Thousands of children (and parents, guardians, teachers) from around 70 schools and community organisations formed a one-and-a-half hour procession full of noise, colour and cavorting to this year’s theme of ‘Taking Flight.’

Before the procession began there were the usual balloon, garland and whistle sellers trying to ensure that the watching children were as colourful and noisy as the marching ones.

Then the formal parade began, led by the Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Brighton & Hove City Council, preceded by the mace bearer.

Following them, the schools, about 70 of them, taking almost an hour and a half to process by where I was standing. They were a jolly lot, parents and children entering into the spirit of the thing although the day was rather cool and grey - but dry thank goodness.

The theme was 'Taking Flight' and, as you might expect, there were birds of various kinds on display, some plain, some colourful...

Indeed , there was an entire school of penguins, including baby penguins...and an owl.

There was one strange bird that I did not recognise..it was rather goggle-eyed and had bat-like wings...

It was nice to see the children - and many of the parents - obviously enjoying themselves, though, for some of the children, it meant hard concentration...

Birds were an obvious idea for illustrating the 'Taking Flight' theme but there are other things that fly...what about a super hero? One that even Rudyard Kipling never dreamed of?

Then, there were the bees (or were they wasps?)

The next one had me a bit puzzled...ancient Egyptians dancing away. I thought they had their feet firmly on the ground, building pyramids and sphinxes?

Then, there was the curious case of ladies with moustaches...

It turned out they were pilots from early 20th century aeroplanes, Biggles-era (for proof, see the bi-plane in the background below. I love the fluffy white 'clouds' being carried by the kids - touch of genius that!).

Then, we remain with modern planes but jump forward 25 years or so to the Second World War with Royal Air Force personnel, spitfires and later...

Some of the thinking was quite ingenious. Would you have thought of a circus and the flying human cannonball? No, me neither.

And then there's Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, the flying car in the children's story. Did you know that the story was written by Ian Fleming - who was more famous for writing the James Bond novels! The parents and teachers put a huge amount of effort into this one - well done!