Crowd gets a shock as '˜Jesus' drops cross through window in Hastings

James Taylor was one of up to 75 people watching the procession, which starts at St Clements Church and finishes at All Saints Church in the Old Town.

‘Jesus’ was stumbling under the weight of the cross in character, when, about halfway through the procession, he reached ‘quite a narrow pavement’, Mr Taylor said.

The 37-year-old, from Brighton, said: “As he fell, the cross was too large for the thin pavement and one end went through the window.”

There was ‘a gasp across the crowd’, he said, and for a moment he was worried that the actor has been injured.

But, seemingly unharmed, Jesus and the Romans stayed in character and continued on their way.

“It was quite amusing,” said Mr Taylor, who had come with his wife and son to visit his sister and her fiancé in Hastings.

Fortunately, the window seemed to have already been fixed by the end of the day, he said.

“Someone was on the ball with it!” he said.

The annual procession re-enacts the Stations of the Cross and passes through the Old Town, back to the High Street and to St Mary Star of the Sea, before finishing at All Saints Church.

Kevin Boorman, who played a Roman soldier in the annual procession, said the cross accidentally broke the window at a house in High Street as the procession wound its way through the Old Town.

He added: “We were quite concerned at the time when it happened.

“One of the other people involved in the procession is a handyman and returned to the house on Saturday morning (April 15) to repair the window.

“We secured it and made it safe immediately after it was broken and repaired it within 24 hours.

“This was totally unexpected. The cross had been dropped on the ground as it’s supposed to be but it bounced off the ground so one of its arms went through the window.”

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