QPARA member Mike Bailey wrote about last year’s Queen’s Park Day in the QPARA Newsletter:

Come rain or shine, Queen’s Park Day is always a highlight in the local calendar. This year the sun shone and residents and visitors flocked here in their thousands (14,860 to be precise).

QPD is part traditional village fete – cake and jam competitions, donkey rides, a tug-of-war tournament – combined with twenty-first-century music-making, the candy-floss thrill of the funfair and the delights of a street-food festival. And that’s not to mention over a hundred individual stalls offering an A to Z of tempting items, promoting good causes and spreading the word about local events.

This is genuinely a something-for-everyone occasion. Whether you want to learn ballet or how to box, to keep bees or take up Filipino martial arts, the opportunityis here. For many, simply watching the entertainment on offer is enough, from the remarkable Fanti contortionists to Mr Alexander’s brand of magic, to the regular high point of the Queen’s Park’s Vets fancy-dress dog show. For some, just sitting on a hay bale sipping Pimms while the world passes by is enough.

Some changes were made to this year’s arrangements, principally by moving the Community Performance stage to the Kensal Rise side of the café, thus avoiding a musical face-off with the bandstand and providing a showcase for local performers.

At the end of the afternoon, as the last helium balloon escaped over the treetops and the barbecue smoke faded on the breeze, weary parents gathered up little girls with flower-braided hair and their tiger-face-painted brothers. All of them, we hope, making a promise to come again next year. Our thanks, as ever, go to the tireless team of volunteers who make this complex event happen.

The last word goes to senior resident Monty Charkham, a seasoned observer of QPD down the years: ‘Everybody was smiling! Like an aura of happiness all over. It’s a remarkable day, you know.’