Coronation

FIREWORKS

THE SMILING VALE OF BELVOIR

THE Vale of Belvoir is chuckling over the firework display that wound up the Coronation festivities at the Leicestershire village of Harby. In the presence of 150 spectators (writes a correspondent) the stewards carried a fine clothes basket of rockets and the like to the scene of operations.

Watching an attendant sorting the fireworks with a naked light, sparks dropping, one had an intuition that Harby was on the eve of a momentous display. It arrived all right. I think it was a set piece, entitled " Franco bombs Harby." A sudden flash and bang!

Rockets to right of us;
Crackers to left of us;
Onward we thundered.
Into the schoolyard we rushed;
Someone had blundered.

Rockets chased the fleeing spectators like whippets and rattled a lively tattoo on the sides of motor cars. Presently, all was quiet. The gently burning clothes basket lit up the wan faces of the Harbyites peeping round the walls and over the tops of hedgerows. Slowly they emerged from their shelters. The insurgents had retired. The display was over in three minutes, and Harby went to bed.

(From a newspaper report)