’Ee, by gum, tha’s bin nowt like it! Yorkshire Day that is.

Since its launch in 1985, the celebration to champion all that’s good about being a tyke has never had such a high attendance.

So Skipton is now the current record holder, guests at the special civic dinner at the Rendezvous Hotel at Snaygill were told on Thursday.

At the end of that first day of four days of celebrations, an exhausted Dave Parker, chief officer of Skipton Town Council, said: “We are absolutely delighted at the way the day panned out.

“With any large-scale event like this you would expect a few problems along the way but everything went really smoothly. Our civic guests particularly enjoyed the boat trip on the canal – and the parade through town looked really impressive.

“I’m very proud of my town centre management team. I know how hard they have worked on this event, and that hard work really paid off. It was another great day for our town.”

The day was kick-started with a colourful chain-gang of 200 dignitaries from across Yorkshire, parading along High Street after sailing up the Leeds-Liverpool canal from the Rendezvous Hotel, at Snaygill, in a flotilla of 16 narrowboats.

They alighted near Skipton bus station in all their civil regalia, tricorne hats, ceremonial maces and swords at the ready and formed up behind the Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai Band, part of the Army Music Corps, based at Catterick Garrison.

More than 50 Lord Mayors, Mayors and council chairmen took part alongside councillors, Paralympic gold medal archer Danielle Brown and Alain Bezirard, mayor of Skipton’s French twin-town, Erquinghem-Lys.

The parade, welcomed by a surprisingly large crowd for a working day, trooped up High Street to assemble in Holy Trinity Church and take part in a Yorkshire themed service hosted by the Bishop of Bradford, the Right Rev Nick Baines and Skipton rector Canon Adrian Botwright, in one of his last civic events before leaving the parish in September.

Exiting the church, the visitors marched off into Skipton Castle, where they formed a huge capital Y to be photographed by the Craven Herald’s Stephen Garnett.

The opening ceremony marked the start of four days of celebrations designed to culminate in a Yorkshire-themed fun day on the High Street on Sunday.

The main events took off on Friday when people were invited to frolic on an “urban beach”, a three day activity in the Canal Basin in which the area was transformed into a East Coast holiday resort with everything from Punch and Judy to deckchairs, a beach hut, donkey rides, doughnuts, candy floss and a rhubarb and custard flavoured Skipton seaside rock.

Friday also saw Skipton Building Society Camerata take part in a Night at the Opera at Skipton Town Hall when over 100 musicians performed at one of the biggest events of its kind Skipton has seen.

A giant TV screen gave a special showing of Calendar Girls on Sunday followed by the latest film version of Les Miserables.

Visitors were also challenged to take part in quirky sporting events like throwing the flat-cap and coconut shy.

There was Yorkshire grown food and Yorkshire made produce at a farmers’ market on the High Street.