Thousands enjoy Christmas cheer at Pinner Panto Evening

11:22pm Thursday 27th November 2008

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THOUSANDS of people crowded through the streets of Pinner this evening for its annual Christmas celebration.

Shops decorated their front windows, while the owners donned fancy dress, and school choirs sung carols at Pinner Pantomime Evening.

Police believe between 10,000 and 15,000 people turned up over the course of the night.

Bernadette Molloy, 47, of Eastcote Road, Pinner, said: “I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed the choir singing outside Woolworths. I also enjoyed the mulled wine.

“The kids absolutely love it. It's hard to get them home.”

Councillor John Nickolay, mayor of Harrow, turned on the Christmas tree lights, at 5pm, and there were fairground rides and morris dancers, as well as selections of food outside restaurants.

Terry Farr, owner of Friends Restaurant, in High Street, Pinner, helped organise the first ever panto when, a year-and-a-half after he first moved to the area in 1992, he noticed no Christmas lights had been put up.

Today he joined one of his chefs to dress up as the ugly sisters for the evening.

He said: “It's a great evening. It's great to see all these people walking around with smiles on their faces. I think it's a marvelous event.”

The panto evening is funded by contributions from shops and community groups, like the Pinner Association, but organisors struggled to collect the money needed this year and their were initial fears it would not go ahead.

Mr Farr said: “Right from day one it was very hard to raise the money to do it because you get very little help from outside organisations. I think it will go on because it's a wonderful evening.”

Police and community support officers from Pinner's two safer neighbourhood teams were on patrol and helped direct traffic.