Celebration of 90th anniversary
The Volunteer Fire Company operating in our village has celebrated 90 years of existence since its founding. An official celebration was held and I and my husband were asked to come and take photos. We hesitated but were pleased by the invitation and finally made a decision to accept and give it a try.
The first part of the celebration was devoted to speeches and reminding the history of the fire company. While listening I was walking around and focusing on a little exhibition of new… as well as old equipment and vehicles.
In the photo above the older vehicle on the left belongs to the local firemen, the more modern vehicle on the right belongs to the firemen from a town nearby.
When all was said, firemen gathered in front of the building to form a procession. It all looked very festive, how many times do you see your neighbours in such uniforms?
The procession was walking from the building of the local municipal authority to the local chapel by which the Volunteer Fire Company’s flag was consecrated by a vicar-general who arrived from Pilsen for this special occasion. He was speaking among others about St. Florian, a patron saint of fire fighters, and about putting out fires in our relationships, which I really liked.
We happened to know the vicar-general from some time ago and I was curious whether he would remember us. He did and it was a nice meeting after many years.
Then the procession went back to the local monument where a wreath was put in honour to the citizens fallen in both of the world wars.
The procession was accompanied by a small band playing to set a marching step, that music made an important part of the atmosphere.
The celebration was crowned by a demonstration of firefighting using that old fire engine which was displayed, we all could see that it’s still functional and could be used if needed.
You can imagine that plenty of people were photographing the event. I liked the challenge to be one of them, trying to be in the right place at the right time, choose the best shots as possible, avoid other cameras and photographers and adjust settings of my camera properly. It was a great experience and I hope you enjoyed at least a bit of the atmosphere of that event too.
