This was an opportunity for Albury to celebrate like the people of Goulburn do with the Lilac Festival and Grafton does with the Jacaranda Festival.

The floral festival drew in large numbers of tourists to Albury and included floral festival queens on floats and decorated bicycles.

Jack Dallinger’s 8 millimetres movie of a decorated bicycle parade is available on YouTube.

It was a great honour for a young lady in those days to be pronounced the floral festival queen.

Rutherglen uses its wine industry walkabout to very successfully promote its heritage.

The former Albury mayor Cleaver Bunton was a strong proponent of the floral festival and co-opted people like the former manager of The Border Mail, Gordon Dowling, and his team to run the floral festival athletic carnivals.

Albury’s Gold Cup, tennis, hockey, junior football carnivals, Nail Can Hill runs and other sporting events are reasonably catered for at present.

We have a first class athletic field at Alexandra Park but no major carnivals being conducted like the junior olympics once conducted at the Albury Sportsground by the Lions Club.

Alexandra Park is well used for little athletics, interschool meetings and is a great asset.

A floral festival weekend including a Dean Street parade of floats and decorated bicycles followed by a ball where the queen is announced and an athletics carnival on the Sunday would be a good start.

Need an enthusiastic city council and competent organiser.

— ERROL EDMONDS,

Albury