A Carnival Island.

The Isle of Wight has one of the most prolific and historical carnival traditions in this country.

Since 1888, towns and villages all over the island have enjoyed annual parades and festivities, with local families and communities creating, making, performing, and watching up to 20 parades every year.

It all started in 1887 – when Ryde decided to hold a parade through the town for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. The County Press referred to a Rather Bewildering Spectacle, yet it was so popular that it was repeated in 1888 and re-branded as a ‘carnival’ to entice more people to take part and enjoy.

A year later Sandown held a carnival, and so did Ventnor. The enthusiasm for the carnival events spread right across the island and carnivals popped up in Cowes, Newport, Shanklin, Yarmouth, St Helens, and in several smaller villages too. The Isle of Wight became a Carnival Island!

Our project set out to capture real life memories of people who took part over the years. The stories are personal, funny, moving, and inspiring. They demonstrate the determination, the commitment, the inventiveness and resourcefulness of ordinary people having fun and being creative together. The Island is very proud of its carnival heritage.

Harvesting the stories and celebrating the heritage.

A process of community engagement, youth participation, formal and informal oral history recording sessions took place over a two-year period to produce the creative content for this project.

The New Carnival Company partnered with Carisbrooke Castle Museum, which holds the Island archive of carnival memorabilia, and Lisa Kerley, oral historian of InspirEd to work with local people, carnival organisers and legendary performers, to gather their stories and record them for posterity.

Prior to the pandemic of 2020, social gatherings in school settings were organised to encourage intergenerational conversations around carnival, using a specially commissioned ‘memory box’ of archived treasures and old photos on loan from the Museum. Children took part in workshops where they learned reminiscence skills and how to use conversation triggers for the gatherings.

The schools were also encouraged to use their newfound carnival intelligence to devise and create a contemporary performance for summer events – re-imaginings of classic carnival troupes and tableaux.

This outcome was finally realised in summer of 2021, when children at a local Carnival Summer School in Ryde worked with artists, costume makers and choreographers to put together an outdoor performance of A Rather Bewildering Spectacle – The Show.

Our carnival contributors come from all walks of life.

Many have been raised up into Island carnival culture – with stories to share of grandfathers, uncles and parents taking part in years gone by – or of their own childhood memories of parading in homemade outfits as chimney sweeps, nursery rhyme characters or even an egg! It’s just what you did. What you planned for and looked forward to.

They have told us about carnival in the 1950’s and 60’s, the heyday of Island carnival, of the Holiday Camp entries, of weeklong programmes of fun events, window spotting, baby shows, visiting Fairs, celebrity openings…

We have spoken to former carnival queens, to carnival organisers and marching band members. We have learnt a lot about the history and heritage of legendary troupes like the Ryde Buccaneers and the Keystone Kops and the eccentric Ventnor Comic Jazz band.

We would like to acknowledge some special people who have joined us on this journey – especially:

Judy, Luke and Clara Valvona, Bob Trowbridge and Lynne Siequien, Brian and Margaret Cope, Den Clare, Linda Morris, Betty Coates Evans, Andrew Pitman, Carol and Rodney Corbett, Alan Garnett, Malcolm Ross, Heather Humby, Rod Warne, Jo Treagus, Rob Jones, Chris Slann, Frankie Goldspink and Graham and Rodney Walmsley.

And the teachers, parents and young people of Oakfield Primary School Ryde, St Francis Primary School Ventnor, Wootton Primary School, Barton Primary School Newport, Lanesend Primary School Cowes and St Helens Primary School.