Carnivals

With the Notting Hill carnival in full swing, the Edinburgh festival midway through, Glynebourne just ending and a host of August bank holiday carnivals and mini-fests throughout the UK, perhaps it’s time to think about something for Llandudno and Colwyn Bay?

The Victorian Extravaganza was originally launched to kick-start the season because of the ‘new’ May Day bank holiday, and that was quickly followed by Colwyn’s Prom day. However, August is a time when, traditionally, families grab the last, desperate chance before Autumn and the new school term to visit the seaside. Perhaps we need a mini-carnival to celebrate the end of summer; with a bit of thought, we could devise one event for both towns.

To mount a carnival, one first needs to think of a theme. Just an ‘August’ carnival would leave people scratching their heads to think of anything Augusty (nothing springs immediately to mind, it has to be said) so the next step is to indulge in a bit of cunning research to find out what August 31st is well known for (the holiday falls on or around that time most years)

And it’s fairly interesting. On August 31st, in 1888, the First 'Jack the Ripper' victim was discovered in Buck's Row, London, Gaius Caligula, that master of coffee mornings and sheer niceness as a Roman Emperor was born, Thomas Edison patented the first movie projector, the United Kingdom pound saw the exchange rate of $5.00 to the Pound drop for the first time in 1930, Coca-Cola was first sold in Britain in the basement restaurant of Spence's department store in 1900, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patented his invention of the rigid airship, known modestly as the Zeppelin and in 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie reached Blair Castle Scotland, whilst in 1535 Pope Paul II deposed and excommunicated King Henry VIII, and that’s all on just one day.

So what sort of carnival could be held? Perhaps a Coke-sponsored, Greco-Roman pageant, depicting the birth of the film industry in Scotland and the rise of disestablishmentarianism, set in German back-alleys where nefarious serial killers lurked, all flanked by hot air balloons? Unfortunately, not a lot seems to have happened in Wales on that date. Unless we count the new Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Historical, Religious, Fiscal, Mass Murder, Slaughter and Technological Re-enactment society’s fun day on Bodafon and Rhos front.

Or maybe we’ll just grab an ice cream...