Busy day for Bank Hall shopkeepers

Spectators were lining both sides of Bank Hall Road, St Michael, as early as 8:30 a.m. yesterday waiting on the bands to appear.But long before the appearance of the first two bands, Walk Holy and Blue Box Cart, vendors and shopkeepers between Eastmond Corner and Bank Hall Cross Road were seeing some early business and this continued throughout the day.By 10:30 a.m. the Bank Hall, St Michael stretch had already been transformed into a sea of colour, with costumed revellers gyrating along the road while bystanders, many also colourfully attired, showed their moves to the music coming from the bands as well as the road-side sound systems.  One reveller, businessman David Goddard, who said he has been jumping from the days when the final convergence point was the Garrison Savannah, said he enjoyed the extended route and described it as a “positive innovation”.   “Some people have been asking for two days of Kadooment] but that does not make sense, especially when one thinks that after the first day costumes are not worth anything. So if it is more revelling that people want, a longer route is the best thing for them,” he said.Locations such as Sawh’s Shop and a stall manned by popular vendor Ling Pong and his staff had steady traffic in the early morning period and throughout the late afternoon.Ling Pong, well known for his fish cakes and exotic meats, had a steady clientele during the day with pickled conch being the rage at his Bank Hall junction site.Several personalities were spotted on Bank Hall,  including former television anchor/politician/businessman Doug Hoyte, United States Embassy’s communications officer Amanda Lynch-Foster, former West Indies and Barbados wicketkeeper Courtney Browne, the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation’s Ann-Marie Burke and National Trust’s Billy Gollop, among several others.One particularly comic moment occurred when two revellers were seen gyrating on an inflated doll in the area of Queen Mary Road and a bystander was overheard to remark: “This is the first time I have ever seen a doll dancing with two dummies.”Despite the heavy flow of alcoholic beverages along the route, revellers and onlookers were well behaved and police and other security personnel had a mostly uneventful trek. (WG)