The Paper Costume and the Fire Brigade

When mom (Joyce Thompson) was about 5 years old, her mother made her a paper costume for a parade.  The year would have been 1929.

This parade was a BIG event.  Everyone in Peterborough was there.  People lined up and down the streets.  In 1929 Peterborough had a population of about 40,000 people.  But am sure, as with any big event, people from all around the countryside would have come too.  There was a lot of excitement weeks before the big parade.  I don’t know for sure but I think this event might have been the hospital carnival parade.  The parade was a fund raiser for the War Memorial Hospital.  You see, Prince George, Duke of Kent, was coming to Peterborough to attend the parade, open an extension of the Power Station, lay the foundation stone for the new Town Hall, and open a children’s wing at the hospital.

So there’s our little Joyce, all proud in her paper costume and filled with excitement from all the going ons. She’s happy and proud standing with her mom watching the parade.  And here comes the fire brigade.  They are part of the parade and as they roll down the street they are spraying a firehose on the spectators.  Everyone is squealing and laughing.  As they pass in front of mom, they turn their hose on the people around her.  She gets caught in the spray.  She looks down and she’s soaking wet and her paper costume is in ruins.  She was crushed.  That beautiful costume is no more.  And there she stands.  The firemen thought it was funny.  But she didn’t.  She is mortified and in tears.  Her day is ruined.