THE YPRES TIMES
43
organized a publicity pageant with vehicles of every description, decorated with
flowers, ribbons and coloured paper, carrying placards and advertising signs.
The event coinciding with Shrovetide Carnival, a number of merry-makers
and masqueraders joined the procession, which, gratified with a warm sun, resulted
in a real success. The country people from all around had turned up and filled
the town, enjoying the show and leaving a good profit to café keepers and
retailers.
The organizers understood what exceptional opportunity was offered them
to make it an annual event. With the help of their fellow shopkeepers and
retailers, the support of local associations, private contributions and financial
encouragement from the community, they rehearsed the following year, and
yearly since, in the shape of a purely carnivalesque procession which kept on
growing in importance. Groups from Bruges, Ostend, Poperinghe, Hazebrouck,
Alost, Courtrai, and other neighbouring towns, some of them with their bands,
join the throng, each trying to win prizes awarded for the best make-up, or best
performing group.
A committee is specially appointed for this task. Indeed, there is no exagger
ation in saying that the Shrovetide Carnival is a powerful publicity and one of the
periodical events drawing the largest crowd to Ypres.
Many members of The Ypres League will have learned from the papers
that the Ramparts were threatened with demolition with a view to giving work
to unemployed. Some papers even reproduced a photograph of the Lille gate,
thus leading their readers to believe that all this was doomed to disappear.
Members of the Ypres League will certainly learn with a sigh of relief that
the Ramparts and moat will remain untouched.
The part that was actually under menace was that section facing the railway
station south of Skindles Hotel. From a historical viewpoint this part of the
ancient fortifications is of great interest, being all that is left of the original
unaltered structures built by Vauban between 1678 and 1684.
F. V.
(Ypres.)
March 6th, 1932.
With reference to the above, it is an immense relief to hear that the proposal is
abandoned.
We trust the Civic Authorities have realized the grave unwisdom of the destruction
of the Ramparts.
The people at Ypres must realize that the sights are now few and far between
and if any more disappear it is bound to bring a very grave diminution in the Pilgrimages.
W. P. Pulteney, Lieut.-General,
Chairman, Ypres League.
