Silloth Carnival 2006

Bank Holiday Monday, 29th August 2006... a birthday at the caravan site, and a family get-together to visit the Silloth Carnival!

Silloth still has the air of a Victorian seaside town, with wide cobbled streets and a central Green for festivities. The annual carnival is popular enough, but this year they invited the Red Arrows to make an appearance so from 10am the whole town was shut off to cars. I travelled and made it before the curfew, meeting at the caravan site and walking into town after cake and coffee.



First, though, we had a visitor to the caravan!:


Donkeys on the Green (please note the fairy in front!):


There was some traditional Cumberland Wrestling going on too, with some competitors coming from Brittany where it is also still popular:


There was a procession of floats etc (these kids are obviously traumatised):


There were two Longcakes Icecream Vans on the Green, but one was purely ornamental:


There were some reprobates hanging around drinking cider:


Some of the food stalls from Solfest had made it to the Green, along with a travelling fairgound with scary-looking rides (scary because they were made of Meccano)

Then the main shows starting with the sadly-soon-to-be-upstaged RAF parachute display team:


They were dropped from a Hercules which did a little flypast but I wasn't quick enough to get pics... then we all moved to the other side of the Amusement Arcade to see the rest of the show, to be performed in and above the Solway with Criffel as a backdrop.
(Special mention should be made of the announcer who we found completely hilarious, but wasn't meant to be funny... the whole thing was like something out of Phoenix Nights!)



First, a Spitfire, which was more than a bit impressive:


Then an airsea rescue, including Lifeboats:

The conditions were a bit choppy but the skies nice and clear for the Main Event. Now I'm going to indulge myself in posting quite a few pics here, cos they were all so good!
There's also clips on YouTube, this one is the better one. You can hear the lead pilot giving out the commands, like some sort of manic Darth Vader.











There were a few sore necks!


Then it was back to the caravan for more cakes, then back home.