The Balsall Heath Carnival

People have been sharing their memories of the Carnival - inspired by the photographic exhibitions we have recently mounted around the area. These are some of the anecdotes we have gathered...

CAROL BOOTH As the new 3D teacher (2004) I was duly passed the baton to encourage pupils to take part in Carnival. I had no idea what to expect and managed to get a few supportive pupils to paint large fabric banners which we attached to long sticks. We found the start point and other more experienced carnivalgoers eyed our large banners , " should have slashed those . " " the wind can't get through " and true to ther word it couldn't . We found ourselves at the front behind the drummers ( fab for photos ) but struggled on gamely to the end ,we did beat the forces of nature and stayed upright just , no - one falterd and somehow we made it to the end with a lesson learned and huge arm muscles !

JOHN BEALT I used to take the horse round. I walked round dressed as a woman in a wedding dress for a bit of a laugh. Steve (Draper) was dressed up as well…as a bloke. We decorated the horse as well. I went into Currys in a nice green number (dress) with a handbag and a donations bucket.

GILL COFFIN I moved into Balsall Heath in 1976 so I was at the first Carnival in 1977. It was in a different place to where we have them now. Seven Streets Park which was very new at that point.

IAN EDWARDS (on carnival coloring posters) It’s one of the most effective forms of advertising for the event. I always think it’s quite exciting when I spot the first poster in a window. You think its happening, its real now.

Clifton (School) started doing a walking entry before we lost the lorries, because it meant they could involve so many more children.

I started off as a dogsbody really and worked my way up through the ranks and I get the privilege of co-ordinating it these days.

The Committee decides the theme of the carnival and its always an interesting negotiation between people with different ideas. We have come close to repeating themes on occasion but the idea is to different themes to stretch people. The more serious themes tend to be those which have had funding, attached such as Celebrating Cultural Diversity.

My first one, possibly, was when I was in the Youth Theatre and we did a play called The Golden Goose and we turned that into a float. I didn’t do much more than jump on the float and have a fun time.

One year the St Pauls computer club built a micro-chip and put it on top of a mini so it was a mini-micro. That was the first float I got involved with building. Next year I wanted to go one better and we built a seven times scale Sinclair Spectrum. It was fantastic!

At one of the Seven Street carnivals I spent the day in a tent blowing up helium balloons to give out to kids. We had the balloons, a can of helium but no machine for tying knots in them so I had to manually tie knots in these balloons and I was in tears by the end of the day. All my fingers were raw and bleeding, and I had to get two plasters sent from the school so I could carry on knotting them! It really hurt but I wasn’t going to stop!

We attract more people every time we do it, we measure in the thousands these days. That was the reason for moving from Seven Streets to Pickwick Park. All the money collected in tins goes to pay for that year’s carnival itself. I remember staying up all night the night before carnival on more than one occasion (getting floats together).

It never rains on carnival day and that is what the official record shall show! (BUT read Val Hart….)

GLADYS FORD Ron right from early morning would be building the stalls and everything. He drove the wagons for the carnival too. I would be round home (Brunswick Road) cooking the burgers and sausages. I used to do it and take it over for friends.

My kids used to be involved in it. Tracey was the clairvoyant. She knew nothing about it but she had a good go at it! They dressed her up, crystal ball and everything. It was just for a laugh really.

Last couple of years they have had more diverse food than before but there have always been hot dogs and burgers.

RON FORD Tony (Stokes) and I thought we would have a cool-off because it was a nice hot day and so we went in the stocks. Not known to us was someone has gone in The Railway and told people we were in the stocks. Next thing we knew all the lads in the area came out and paid ten pounds a bucket to have a go at us. We landed up having a water fight! (seaside theme)

ANITA HALLIDAY We were expecting a lorry that was 26 feet long and we’d designed the whole of Shakespeare’s plays to go on the back of the lorry….and what turned up was about 12 feet long. We cut everything in half basically. We went round with Romeo and Juliet on the balcony with their noses heavily pressed to the ruins of the Parthenon which was in turn rather mixed up with Burnham Wood. I am sure that nobody had any idea that this was slightly concertinaed…We had Sylvia as Cleopatra, not reclining so much as sitting bolt upright.

Our representation of Robin Hood and his Merry Persons featured Sherwood Forest. We made that in the Art Room of the school. The oak trees of Sherwood Forest were broad leaved, broad branched and everything and when it came to lifting them up, taking them outside and putting them on the lorry…they wouldn’t go through the door. Really! I don’t quite know why that escaped everyone’s attention until about 9 o’clock on the morning of the carnival. So we had to whip out a few saws.

Sir Francis Drake and a considerable chunk of the armada was so good…with a very tall mast. The thing was it didn’t have any means of going under the bridge….so….seeing the bridge coming she said to the not terribly well organised crew “whoops bridge coming” and we lowered the mast. I do remember the capstan, super capstan, which Paul Stocking built and he built for reality. It was huge but unfortunately it wasn’t attached to a bit of the lorry and so the not very large sailors were racing round the back of the lorry following the capstan and trying to keep it on the lorry while at the same time lowering the mast under the bridge. It was quite realistic though, we only need a few pirates boarding and we would have been away.

The very first carnival (1977) was Camelot because it featured knights on chargers and so forth Paul made everything our of 4 by 4s which made them very “sturdy” and if you are trying to run round the carnival procession wearing one of those hobby horses then you conked out by something like the first quarter of a mile! So what we had were flaking out horses and people. A lot of very tired girls and boys.

VAL HART (1988 Improving the Environment) The first year I was at the Venture we did this fantastic float called Top Of The Crops and we had these children strung up as peas on a frame and we had more of them dressed as carrots. We got halfway up Edward Road and the heavens opened and I have never seen such rain and all the crepe paper of the carrots ran and they had got these orange and green streaky faces. Worst of all the poor little kids strung up as peas couldn’t move as they were stuck on the frames and they were absolutely soaking. (added by Ian Edwards – I distinctly remember the howls of these little children crying)

ALBERT JOHNSON We started about five years before it was held here (Pickwick Park) because we used to have it on Seven Streets Park.

I was a Scout leader (First Moseley Athletic) and how we got involved with St Pauls for the Carnival was they needed our help and we needed theirs. We had got equipment to do outdoor catering so they asked us to do the hot dogs. We started off with 50 and in four years time we were doing 400 and we still couldn’t get enough. We had got a “conveyor belt” system serving hot dogs. I had been a cook in the navy so I cooked them and we had people cutting rolls, taking money etc. To do 400 in two hours we went flat out!

I brought in people to help who I knew. Sam from the Red Lion brought his horse and dray down. He used to show at Kings Heath horse show.

We have to have police there but I cannot think of them ever having to do anything other than walk around, talk to people, eat hot dogs and drink tea. I don’t think we have had even one arrest.

PAT JOHNSON I went to Moseley Festival, they were just starting out, and everybody said if Moseley can do it then so can Balsall Heath. And it was the next year or year after we started to do the Balsall Heath Carnival.

My best memory was when we doing that Hackett Hospital, which was a skit on the Health Service. We had this bed and it was only kept on the float by these bricks and as we were going down Belgrave Middleway the bed started to move with me on it. I thought I was going to come off the back! Ben Churchill was on the float with us He was supposed to knock me out for anaesthetic but he got a bit carried away and if it hadn’t been for Bernard (Jackson) I would have had no brains left. It was hilarious that was.I was the patient and Bernard was the doctor. I got up at one point though because I was fed up of lying down. The vehicles all came from local traders who also donated a driver. There would be about twenty floats at each carnival. It would take weeks to get the stuff prepared (for the float) but then you only had the morning to try and get it all together. It was no rag-tag and tails thing. They were quite colourful and ornate.

DAWN KERR I used to work in The Crown and couldn’t wait to get out. It started off (the carnival) in Malvern Street when I used to go. We used to go over when it went to Pickwick Park.

We used to sit on the green with all the children and every year they used to look forward to it. “Mom” they would say, “When’s the carnival”? I think the carnival has made it for the community round here.

I used to be in Mrs Salway’s class and we would look forward to the carnival. Now I work at Clifton and I am helping kids get ready for it!

ANNE MALIK We had been attending the carnival for years and last year (2009) we decided “Lets have a stall there”. We should have done it years ago because we enjoyed the day more. We met a lot of friends, old and new. Three of us did henna. We did drink too which went really well because what I did was freeze the bottles so it kept the water really cold. The henna only took a couple of minutes for each person.

As a child when I came I liked the colourful atmosphere. There was no henna then though or a lot of food – just hot dogs and burgers. I loved the smell of fried onions though.

My kids cost me a bomb on carnival day. They go off and spend it on quad bikes, food etc. There is free stuff too, the Children’s Centre have their stall where you can colour, paint and make cards and stuff.

Last year a school came and did Irish Dancing…fantastic. Those girls were so talented.

They have got the West Midlands police there, talking to the kids, and I think that’s lovely.I bring my kids and it’s about walking around and the atmosphere.

I like the homemade stuff, food and cakes. That’s the difference of the carnival.

RAV MALIK I led the carnival, I was in military uniform right out front doing my march. I was at the carnival every year and always in the procession.

A few weeks before we would do the carnival colouring and then stick them in the window and someone would come round and do the judging. We used to get posters, colour them in, name on there, stick them in the window and someone came round to pick a winner….I never won though. You go round to everyone else’s windows to see how they have coloured their’s in.

WILLIAM McCABE There have been walking entries for many years. Thinking in particular of the Chinese dragon up front that used to have a long tail behind it… all those drummers too.

PETER SALWAY We went one year and were dressed as girls and I had a pair of shorts underneath my dress (obviously). We had parked down by Mary Street and coming back I thought I am not driving in this (dress) so I just took the skirt and things off to put my trousers on. This woman coming up the road played hell with me!

DIANE STEAD (sometime between 1977 and 1980) Kevin and Simon (Mortimer) wanted to go to the fair and they talked my mother (their great aunt) into going on the fair. You must bear in mind she was 70 but very full of life. So the two lads (who were about 8 and 9) talked her into going on the Waltzers. She was game for anything really. We were supposed to be going to town after in the car but we didn’t make it because she was so sick. Absolutely aweful.