Would you give money
to people like this lot? Well you would if you were in Exeter
in the late 1950s and valued your life. The St. Trinians films
had just been made and were showing in the cinemas,  so everyone knew that they were
in trouble if they met this group. Despite the nice smiles, the
message is loud and clear: "Either give us money for charity
or we hit you with these big hockey sticks." The excitement
and good humour of the occasion is well captured in this photograph.
Far less clear now is the message conveyed in many of the floats. When they wound their way through the streets, the spectators would understand immediately what the displays meant. They would be referring humorously or critically to something which was happening at the time either locally or nationally. Today I find nearly all of these photographs perplexing. Their meaning is elusive. We seem to lose the ability to decode messages as their frame of reference changes with the passage of time. So all I can do is to leave you to try to work out what was happening all those years ago. Let me know if you succeed and I will fill in the details. It was a cold and bleak morning when I took these photographs but the enthusiasm of the participants shines through. |
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