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Her loyal subjects

1/ 7/2002

NORTH West Asians showed that they also felt proud to be British as they celebrated the Queen's Jubilee in Manchester.

Bangladeshi's, Indians and Pakistanis joined over two thousand people in a major parade through Manchester City centre. The torrential downpour on Jubilee Monday couldn't stop Bangladeshi Oldhamers from partying. The boys donned Union Jack bandannas along with a green and red cloak representing the Bangladeshi flag as they joined the parade blaring out traditional tunes. Behind them was a float designed as a Bangladeshi fishing boat, which was being pulled along by young women wearing saris.

Women of all ages from the Oldham Indian Association had parade spectators mesmerised as they performed their dandiya or stick dance. They were dressed in colourful lengas and their dance troupe was lead by two young children, one dressed as the god Krishna and the other as Krishna's partner Radha. Indians from Bolton has were beating out Bollywood tunes on their dhols.

Pupils from Spring Hill High in Rochdale danced along to Asian music band Shola. They wore costumes reflecting the different cultures in South Asia and their float was adorned with the South Asian flags along with the Union Jack and displayed a hand painted picture of a mosque and a dragon.

The parade started at Corporation Street and finished outside Manchester Town Hall where all mayors from Greater Manchester towns were specially seated to watch the colourful, noisy procession.

Said Mujahid Khan from Oldham: "We had a brilliant time. I think a lot of people were really happy to see that we were celebrating British and Asian culture at the same time. We also felt it was important to celebrate 50 golden years of the Queens reign."

Trupti Patel of the Oldham Indian Association said: "We had been planning the dance routines for weeks and we had a great response from the crowd. The girls had worked very hard for the parade. Many of them are very patriotic and wanted to show their appreciation of the Queen."