Before The Pride Parade
Costumes And Music At The Pride Parade in London, July 1st! An unexpected entertainment. Music, dancing, screaming, laughing.
Hat in rainbow colours. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Flags And Colourful Costumes
Many people had rainbow coloured flags. Rainbow coloured items were being sold. Small coloured flags to wave. Big ones to wrap around like a sarong or blanket.
Angela at the Cavalry & Guards Club, London. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
We arrived an hour early on July 1st because the Pride Parade in London march was closing streets, closing stations, and filling the pavement.
We arrived at Green Park station. Our exit was closed and we took the exit to the other side of the road, coming out at the park, and railings and ushers directed down the park to the road crossing.
I was astonished by the numbers of people in brightly coloured costumes.
Later, as we arrived at the other side of the road, the parade started half an hour later than we expected, more like 12.30 than noon. Did it take them half an hour to walk along Piccadilly from Hyde Park Corner.
Nearby roads were closed off.
Police were stationed outside closed stations and at the doorway of branch of a coffee bar nearby down a side street. The nearby hotels had rainbow flags.
From the upstairs windows of the Cavalry & Gaurds Club, as well as the pavement, we could watch the floats and the groups of similarly clad dancers. I remember one group with twirling hula hoops, another doing co-ordinated karate.
Lots of open top buses with company names and blaring jolly music and in front alongside and behind, paraders wearing their grou[s matching t-shirts with the company name blowing whistles.
It was like the Carnival at Rio. I had expected a march and banners, something more serious. It was a happy occasion, lots of dancing and cheers.
Hallmark cards were giving away greeting cards. Their reps run to the edge of the barriers. Other raps ran on my side of the barrier along the pavement (Americans say sidewalk).
We had planned our dinner long before realising that the parade would take place, moving it from one weekend to another because of threatened rail strikes.
We had looked online at the TFL websites to see which stations were closed, and where the pedestrians could cross the roads at the designated road crossing points between barriers.
After The Parade
The websites said that the parade would end at 6.30. But we could not be sure. There was a delay in the starting time. A delay because of the Just Stop Oil Protest, before the police moved on or carried off the protesters.
Stations can be closed for safety if the crowds are too large in the approaching street, at the entrance, or on the stairs and on the platforms. We had already experienced this in London on a previous New Year's Eve. We expected to leave our venue just afte midnight, but police were controlling the crowds with z barriers like at airports.
So instead we walked to Bond Srreet station.
The upstairs windows gave a view of the parade.
I was impressed b
