Samba beat thrills at Carnival

On Friday the 17th June Westbourne School of Samba travelled up to Botesdale village near Diss for their Carnival. The Rio of Suffolk!

The band spent the morning running a series of samba workshops with each year group at St Botolph's Primary School and were highly commended by pupils, staff and parents for the mature and skilful way they helped the younger children learn to play. They were a credit to Westbourne in the way they did this. We managed to get all the year groups playing one of our pieces within half an hour, something weI didn't expect would have been possible, especially with the youngest pupils.              

The afternoon was the Carnival procession through the village. Right on cue the heavens opened, but with admirable good humour the band led the procession performing magnificently in the rain! Locals came out of their houses, workmen, postmen and shoppers stopped and stared as the glorious colourful procession passed noisily by to the samba rhythms! Sullivan Ford and Luke Penning both led the band for a time and deserve real credit for showing such confidence and talent.

I lost count of how many people came and said how wonderful they thought the Westbourne samba students had been - everyone was talking about them.

Of course the rest of the procession behind us was also brilliant. The St Botolph's pupils had created an amazing range of costumes, models and decorations, from giant tree frogs to dragons to ancient Egyptians! It was a real honour and a great experience to be part of such an event.

We were treated to refreshments throughout the day and were given a room in which to take breaks in between the workshops and performances. All the staff and pupils without exception at St Botolph's made us so welcome it was just great. The school community was even generous enough to donate a large sum of money to the band, which is massively appreciated. We'll be investing in new instruments and band t-shirts. Rhiannon Deveraux has created a fantastic thank you card, which all the other band members have signed, and which has been sent to St Botolph's School.

Well done to all samba band members, especially those who came out the very next day for another gig at Bramford Road Methodist Church!