Page 545 - Reading Mercury

CHARITY CARNIVAL AT WOKINGHAM
Town Given Up to Whole-Hearted Gaiety
PROCESSION, SPORTS, GAY COSTUMES, AND BABY SHOW.
Carnival reigned at Wokingham on Wednesday, when for a day and a night the
townspeople and thousands of visitors who went to join in the fun, put aside all
thought of work and sleep, and gave themselves up to revelry.
Wokingham had its first carnival last year, for local charities, and so successful and
enjoyable the venture that it was decided to hold another Carnival this year, and to
provide more amusements than ever. The programme for eighteen hours revelry was
drawn up with such ingenuity that the Carnival was proclaimed even more enjoyable
than last year. The whole town entered into the happy spirit of the occasion. All day
and all night long the town was full of laughing, care-free people, and the Carnival
was a credit to Wokingham.
ARREST OF MRS. GRUNDY IN MARKET PLACE
The fun began at 8 a.m., and when the hour struck a bugler heralded the opening of
the carnival from the Town Hall. It was the signal for a small army of gay garbed
collectors to get busy extracting by tact or torment as much money as they could from
motorists and pedestrians. At 8.30 a.m. the diverting business of beating the bounds
was gone through, and the crowded day of revelry included a beauty show, a baby
show, games and sports, aerobatic display, carnival concerts, carnival dancing,
carnival singing, carnival procession—carnival all the way. The streets were thronged
with care-free people, while hundreds went to the carnival ground, a large field lent
by the Misses Ellison and Mr. Halworth, to be delighted and amused by a succession
of attractions such as Wokingham has never known before, not even last year, for the
1930 carnival was bigger and better and more breathless than the last.

BEATING THE BOUNDS

The sun began to shine through the heavy morning mist when the business of beating
the bounds was commenced with mock solemnity. Hundreds of people, included
excited school children, were given a day’s holiday, gathered at the town Hall at the
ringing of the bell and the stentorian “O-yez, Oyez” of the town crier. The “bumpers”
set off in parties to encircle the boundaries, the Mayor (Ald A.E. Priest) and other
members of the Corporation going to the boundary stone in Reading Road, followed
by motor-coach loads of singing school children. The Mayor donned his chain of
office, and after speaking of the meaning of the ceremony, he was seized by four men,
spreadeagled over the boundary stone, and duly “bumped” with the words, “This is
the Borough boundary,” his captors giving him a bump for each word, in order to
impress the fact upon him. For the benefit of photographers, the Mayor was handled
in this undignified manner three times, and then the Deputy Mayor (Councillor E.S.
Whaley) was caught and bumped. More bumping followed, after which the Mayor

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