David Sanguinetti supports his one-year-old Carson upside down at a bounday corner of St. David’s, Vancouver, as the Rev. Michael Batten, watches. A rational reason (they claim) was given

The quaint custom from England of "beating the bounds" is alive on the East Side of Vancouver.

A parade along the boundaries of St. David's took place at the traditional time, Rogation Sunday (May 13), but by a less traditional procession by bicycle, rather than walking.

The Rev. Michael Batten, whose idea it was, said one of the many strange customs associated with the 2,000 year history of beating the bounds involved the up ending of young boys at boundary markers to impress upon them the limits of the parish.

"Young males of the parish were also subjected to various indignities," said Batten, "such as being beaten with willow rods, thrown through hedgerows or into ponts - all to make up, no doubt, for the various indignities they had visited upon the older male members of the parish during the preceding year."

At the corner of Cambridge and Penticton Streets Carson Sanguinetti was upended by his father David, but there and along the the rest of the route the boy suffered no further indignities.