Friends of Christchurch Railway station

Yesterday I was delighted to attend the 150 year celebration of the opening of the Christchurch railway station. Interesting to note that in those early days if you wanted to go to Bournemouth you had to alight at Christchurch and take a coach and horses! The morning was fantastic and I salute the organisers for creating such an interesting and fun day. As the gateway to Christchurch it seems to me to be really important that the station should be welcoming but for passengers yesterday it must have come as a bit of a shock to be welcomed by a whole array of performers including the Christchurch music centre for youngsters who teach kids to play instruments at Twynham school on a Saturday morning. The orchestra was just fantastic and played their hearts out to the delight of the many people who came to celebrate the occasion. But more was to come with a brilliant choir who without a microphone system raised their voices in beautiful harmony and the Christchurch dance group who dressed as nineteen twenties flappers gave a full 'Charleston' greeting the Mayor and Mayoress as they arrived on one of the scheduled trains. Later the same group dressed in full Turkish costumes performed some intricate belly dance’s in front of the Mayor, fortunately he had me by his side to mop his brow! A team of young drummers dressed as pirates followed and again I was amazed to find that percussion of this kind was so popular in Christchurch. All in all a great day which would not have happened without the considerable efforts of the 'friends of Christchurch railway station' organising committee, it was just brilliant.