UK settles in for 2013 celebrations (From Hillingdon Times)

UK settles in for 2013 celebrations

1:00pm Tuesday 1st January 2013 in National News © Press Association 2013

With the first day of 2013 well under way, the UK is basking in the peace and quiet after raucous celebrations up and down the land - and as far flung as Afghanistan.

As thousands of people gathered in London to see out one of its most memorable years in recent history, revellers also partied on the streets of Edinburgh - dubbed the home of Hogmanay - to welcome the new year.

British forces serving in Helmand Province rang in 2013 with pipe music and party poppers, saying goodbye to the year in which the first 500 servicemen were sent home from Afghanistan.

It was a busy night for the emergency services, with some reporting a huge spike in the number of calls they received. South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb), which handles 999 calls from Kent, Sussex and Surrey, took 1,544 calls between 10pm yesterday and 4am this morning - a rise of more than 20% on the same period last year.

West Midlands Ambulance Service saw its peak for 999 calls between 1am and 4am. The service said it handled 1,291 calls between midnight and 5am, a 9% increase on the same period last year, while 638 calls were taken in the four hours leading up to midnight - a 15% rise on the same period the previous year.

In London, the Metropolitan Police said 96 arrests were made relating to the celebrations, with drunkenness, public disorder and assault being the most common offences.

About 250,000 spectators were estimated to have watched the colourful and noisy pyrotechnics display on the South Bank, which featured 12,500 fireworks. Many of them waited for hours to secure the best viewpoints on the banks of the Thames on what was a dry and mild night.

They looked back at 2012, with the Olympic Games and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations featuring in the display. Mayor of London Boris Johnson described the night as "an amazing end to an incredible year".

Also playing an important role in the aftermath of celebrations were the clean-up crews responsible for sprucing up the capital in time for the New Year's Day parade. Some 200 clean-up staff took just under six hours to clear around 160 tonnes of rubbish in Westminster.

The parade will see a procession of Olympic Games Makers, drummers, stilt walkers and Bolivian dancers greet 2013 as they snake their way through central London. Other celebrations included the New Year's Day dip at Whitley Bay in North Tyneside, where swimmers braved the cold water to mark the beginning of 2013.