By John Burchall Amid blazing heat and spiralling humidity, trade union leaders, politicians, majorettes and gombeys marched through the City of Hamilton yesterday for the 14th Labour day festivities.

More than 100 marchers -- including Deputy Premier the Hon. Jerome Dill, newly appointed Shadow Youth Development Minister Mr. Nelson Bascome and Tourism Director Mr. Gary Phillips -- wound their way from the Bermuda Industrial Union Headquarters through Court, Front, Queen and Church Streets to Bernard Park.

A casually dressed Premier the Hon. David Saul met the marchers on Dutton Avenue and walked into the ground shaking hands and hugging every passerby and marcher in his path.

Earlier in the morning, a healthy crowd thronged both sides of Union Square listening to speeches from Obie Ferguson, the president of the Bahamas Trade Union Congress and Mr. Jim Butler president of the 15,000 strong chapter 420 hospital workers' union from New York.

Rev. Otis Moss, who gave the keynote address at the BIU banquet on Saturday, offered a prayer, while the St. Paul AME choir performed three songs.

The Bermuda Regiment band led the parade -- that included the Bermuda Union of Teachers, the Progressive Labour Party, the Bermuda Public Services' Association, Telco, and the Committee for the Independence of Bermuda -- at the beginning of the march from Union Square onto Victoria Street, but they turned off the route at Court Street and marched north while the parade went south.

However, the Second Hamilton Coralanders -- a group of former scouts with an average age of 70 years -- took over the lead and led the parade under the command of drum major Cedric Thomas.

The significance of yesterday's festivities -- they were in honour of trade union founder Dr. E.F. Gordon's 100th birthday under the theme from Gordon to Independence -- were not lost on locals or visitors.

In fact one Rhode Island couple, Nicholas and Virginia Giardino, came to Bermuda just to see the parade because they had missed it for the last eight years.

"The first time we came we went to the wrong place, the second time it was the wrong time,'' Mrs. Giardino explained. "We always come down around this time just for this.

"We have heard so much about it. We just wanted a taste of your local flavour. Although labour day is a formal holiday back home it is not celebrated with the atmosphere you have here.'' Meantime, Mr. Trevor Mouchette, Dr. E.F. Gordon's grandson, said he was happy to see Bermudians venerating his grandfather's memory in this way.

"He would be pleased to see this,'' Mr. Mouchette said. "I can understand them honouring him now but we need to do more than invoke his memory. We need action now. It is not enough to use his image without understanding his philosophy.

"We need to come as one. Bermuda needs to become a community first. We don't need family values, we need to value the family.'' Blazing heat, humidity fail to deter marchers By John Burchall Amid blazing heat and spiralling humidity, trade union leaders, politicians, majorettes and gombeys marched through the City of Hamilton yesterday for the 14th Labour day festivities.

More than 100 marchers -- including Deputy Premier the Hon. Jerome Dill, newly appointed Shadow Youth Development Minister Mr. Nelson Bascome and Tourism Director Mr. Gary Phillips -- wound their way from the Bermuda Industrial Union Headquarters through Court, Front, Queen and Church Streets to Bernard Park.

A casually dressed Premier the Hon. David Saul met the marchers on Dutton Avenue and walked into the ground shaking hands and hugging every passerby and marcher in his path.

Earlier in the morning, a healthy crowd thronged both sides of Union Square listening to speeches from Obie Ferguson, the president of the Bahamas Trade Union Congress and Mr. Jim Butler president of the 15,000 strong chapter 420 hospital workers' union from New York.

Rev. Otis Moss, who gave the keynote address at the BIU banquet on Saturday, offered a prayer, while the St. Paul AME choir performed three songs.

The Bermuda Regiment band led the parade -- that included the Bermuda Union of Teachers, the Progressive Labour Party, the Bermuda Public Services' Association, Telco, and the Committee for the Independence of Bermuda -- at the beginning of the march from Union Square onto Victoria Street, but they turned off the route at Court Street and marched north while the parade went south.

However, the Second Hamilton Coralanders -- a group of former scouts with an average age of 70 years -- took over the lead and led the parade under the command of drum major Cedric Thomas.

The significance of yesterday's festivities -- they were in honour of trade union founder Dr. E.F. Gordon's 100th birthday under the theme from Gordon to Independence -- were not lost on locals or visitors.

In fact one Rhode Island couple, Nicholas and Virginia Giardino, came to Bermuda just to see the parade because they had missed it for the last eight years.

"The first time we came we went to the wrong place, the second time it was the wrong time,'' Mrs. Giardino explained. "We always come down around this time just for this.

"We have heard so much about it. We just wanted a taste of your local flavour. Although labour day is a formal holiday back home it is not celebrated with the atmosphere you have here.'' Meantime, Mr. Trevor Mouchette, Dr. E.F. Gordon's grandson, said he was happy to see Bermudians venerating his grandfather's memory in this way.

"He would be pleased to see this,'' Mr. Mouchette said. "I can understand them honouring him now but we need to do more than invoke his memory. We need action now. It is not enough to use his image without understanding his philosophy.

"We need to come as one. Bermuda needs to become a community first. We don't need family values, we need to value the family.''