Torcher parade fizzling out

This year’s annual Torcher Parade was the 125th, and featured 21 floats. It’s come a long way from a stately parade of nurses bearing blazing torches, hoping to raise money for their hospital.

Now it’s announced by a full piping band, backed up by the sound of lorry drivers beeping their horns like lorry drivers given free license to beep their horns.

They were followed by the floats of various societies from Aberdeen University and one from RGU, who, in a fit of originality, had picked Frozen as a theme. What may have seemed like a good idea when humming “Do you want to build a snowman” clearly turned into the soul-sucking stuff of which nightmares are made.

Firstly, a gust of wind blew over Olaf, revealing him to be a stick covered in cloth and causing serious trauma to infants in the crowd; and secondly, as the trucks headed back down Union Steet, “Let It Go” was looping for the thousandth time and the smiles on the faces of the students were a little bit, well, frozen. 

The Archaeology society, in the penultimate float, were having a whale of time – having painted their faces and acquired swords from somewhere, they added to the earlier psychological trauma by roaring “To Valhalla!” in the children’s tiny faces.

The Juggling and Slacklining Society were doing half of their description, though slacklining on a moving truck is probably not the easiest thing to do. Even on non-moving ground you have to balance a lot of things, such as looking a smug prick while protesting that it’s really easy if you’d only try. 

There were also floats from Centre Stage, who went with a Scooby-Doo theme; Ab-Fab with Lego; two separate societies with a Marvel theme (one of which added Batman to the mix, which means they made my list) and the Nightline float, which appeared to have pinched one of the Vikings from the Archaeology float and put him in a two-piece.

Maitland Mackie, the Lord Rector, was in his element, riding Angus the Bull at the head of the parade. If you’ve ever wondered, by the way, what a 70-something year old man looks like riding bareback on a facsimile Highland Cow, then wonder no more.

The procession did its job, and the route was well-lined with families and crowds pushing forward to drop coins into buckets. The stewards also deserve praise for keeping the sugar-infused children off the trailers as they tried to climb up and meet their hero Elsa/Batman/Dr Mackie.

The truck drivers, too, should be mentioned: the way they used their horns to ensure that all of Aberdeenshire knew about the charity drive that was happening was very thoughtful.

Whilst Torcher Parade is a traditional part of the academic year, and credit where credits due to the enthusiasm of the organisors, its effectiveness should be brought into question.

Considering not many students know of its happening, wouldn’t societies be better off donating the money they put into their floats straight to charity?

I think it’s an old tradition very much on its last wheels.

Even the Charities Pres couldn’t manage a smile