An English Carnival – Hayling Island: Again within the Thirties and Fifties each city and even village of an affordable dimension would have an annual carnival the place the inhabitants dressed up to participate in a carnival parade with teams competing with one another to create the very best float. And there could be a carnival queen and a elaborate costume competitors, child present, canine present and a great deal of largely innocent enjoyable.
I feel it was the expansion of tv that basically killed most of those off. Quite than going out and making their very own enjoyable folks entertained themselves by sitting in entrance of the field and watching others doing issues. Organising carnivals concerned a number of work and fewer and fewer folks got here to hitch the carnival committee who did most of it. Our native carnival ended I feel within the Nineteen Eighties, although there may be nonetheless one in a close-by city.
Carnivals additionally concerned adults and youngsters working collectively, one thing that turned somewhat extra problematic with media campaigns on “stranger hazard” (household, kinfolk and buddies are extra usually the issue.) Photographing youngsters additionally turned tougher – and occasions involving them had been one of many few issues the place I made positive at all times to put on my press card visibly to reassure folks.
I feel it was the disappearing of English carnivals that led to the Arts Council to offer a grant to a few my buddies to document these nonetheless going down. And infrequently I might be persuaded to hitch one or each of them to go together with them.
Hayling Island on August 2nd 2008 was certainly one of these events – and I’d additionally been there in 2001 and 2005.
Hayling Island is an island near Porsmouth on the South Coast and has a highway bridge from the mainland – there used additionally to be a railway however Beeching minimize this in 1963 and the rail bridge was demolished three years later.
Within the mid-Twentieth century Hayling Island was a preferred vacation resort for Londoners – a part of a part of ‘London-by-the-sea’ – and its inhabitants doubled in the summertime months. Quite fewer go there now, nevertheless it stays a seaside resort.
In 2008 Hayling Island Carnival nonetheless had all of the issues an English Carnival ought to have – and you may see some in my photos. However a couple of years later the carnival appears to have come to an finish due to a scarcity of volunteers.
Later in 2008 along with buddies we held the present ‘English Carnival’ throughout the East London Picture Competition in a gallery in Shoreditch. Though the present is lengthy closed you possibly can nonetheless see all of the work on-line.
Though many conventional English Carnivals have disappeared, new carnivals have come to take their place, and I’ve photographed a lot of these. Whereas the opposite photographers had photos from conventional English carnivals, my contribution to that present was a set of 20 black and white photos NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL 1990-2001
Extra on My London Diary from Hayling Island Carnival 2008.
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All images on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Tags: child present, carnival, carnival queen, canine present, East London Picture Competition, English Carnival, fancy costume, innocent enjoyable, Hayling Island, vacation resort., princesses, Shoreditch
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