THE sky was dark and the rain threatened to pour but as soon as the brightly coloured floats assembled for Croft Carnival the clouds cleared and the air grew warmer.

The popular parade of floats gathered at Kenyon Lane and were joined by walkers at the Memorial Hall. Crowds gathered to wave the procession by on its way through the village to the carnival field. Scary faces also lined the route with nearly every house participating in the fun with a home-made scarecrow.

Schools, churches, Brownies, Scouts, Beavers and Rainbows all took part in the fun day with a variety of original ideas for their decorative floats. The 8th Warrington Croft Cubs donned armour and swords for their Camelot theme world, St Lewis's RC Primary School took the yellow brick road with the Wizard of Oz float, Croft Primary School travelled into the future with their computer crazy creation and Christ Church marked the approach of the Millennium with a tribute to important events of the past 100 years.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.