There is pageantry, pride and passion – and there is fun, festivity and frivolity. There is music, magic and merriment. There are Gutterbluids and Stooriefits – locals, adopted Peebleans and eager visitors.

There are mice, monks, merchants and musketeers. There are pirates, penguins and Polish girls – and girls from around the globe. There's a Mickey Mouse, a Minney Mouse and Mary with her Little Lamb.

There are burly rugby players squeezed into tights and performing acts that would surely win the X Factor or Britain's Got Talent. And the lads from the football club must surely enter for the next Come Dancing.

There is a Cornet and his Lass. There are Wardens of Neidpath and the Cross Kirk. There is a Proclaimer of the Fair. There is a Crowning Lady – and, of course, there is a Beltane Queen.

Sadly, there was added emotion this year. The 95-year-old paternal grandfather of Cornet Colin Noble died early on Thursday morning, just a few hours after his grandson had carried out his Wednesday night duties. He was buried on Tuesday and the funeral was a celebration of his long and full life.

Saturday is the culmination of a week of festivities.

Retired procurator fiscal Fergus Brown proclaimed the Beltane Fair from the base of the old Mercat Cross – a proclamation that set the day in motion.

The colourful characters of the Beltane Festival – pupils from the town's three primary schools – paraded past their Cornet en route to the Parish Church steps where Queen Niamh Smith, 12, would soon be crowned.

And the High Street shook as the town's Ex-Service Pipe Band and red-uniformed Silver Band combined in the stirring and inviting march, "Come O'er the Hills to Peebles", to lead the Cornet and his supporters – on foot – to the scene of the crowning.

It as a deliberately slow, stage-managed and wonderful spectacle. Each movement rehearsed and executed almost to perfection – there is always the occasional gasp as some child concentrated in thought almost takes a backward tumble.

The magic moment is the crowning – carried out impeccably this year by Eva Bissett, a long-time supporter of the Beltane and all things Peebles.

The ceremony over Queen Niamh – a pupil at Kingsland Primary – and her court boarded landaus and sleek cars for a tour of her realm. The other children boarded decorated lorries and thoroughly enjoyed their circuits of the burgh.

As 1pm approached, the official party slipped quietly into the Quadrangle – surely one of the most impressive settings for a war memorial in the Borders.