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Hayling Island Carnival – 2005

Hayling Island Carnival: On Wednesday 3rd August 2005 I went to photograph the carnival on Hayling Island with a couple of friends. I’d been there for the carnival a couple of times in earlier years, though it wasn’t really my kind of thing.

*Neptune’s court – he had plenty to keep him busy*

Two of my friends had in earlier years got money from the Arts Council to record English Carnivals and had persuaded me to go with them in earlier years and I was with one of them again in 2005.

There is an odd fascination about English carnivals, bringing out the eccentricities of the English, something that had been exploited by earlier photographers, perhaps the first being Sir Benjamin Stone (1838 – 1914), who as Wikipedia states made “an invaluable record of the folk customs and traditions of the British Isles, which influenced later photographers of note“. Notable among these, and one who inspired many before his tragic early death was Tony Ray-Jones (1941-72) and the posthumous book ‘A Day Off: An English Journal‘ published in 1974 was certainly the most influential British photographic publication of that era.

I never met Ray-Jones, who died before I was deeply involved in photography, but I did later become friends and worked with his friend, the Brooklyn-born photographer John Benton-Harris who printed much of his work, including the prints for ‘A Day Off’ and had occasionally photographed with him. And those two photographers who first took me to Canvey were ex-students and close friends of John too.

I worked with John on producing the images for what would have been his masterwork, ‘Mad Hatters – a diary of a secret people… as seen through the looking glass of – John Benton Harris‘ still unpublished, though a few of us treasure copies printed by Blurb but never made public. In mine he thanks me for my ‘Valued Technical Help‘, though we also had many discussions and arguments on the sequencing and very occasionally the selection of images, many of which I made significant improvements by some judicious dodging and burning – though always subject to his approval.

*The ladies from the Health centre were going on a booze cruise*

Actually with John virtually every discussion was a bitter argument – we were once asked to leave an event in Borough Market after a shouting match over a review I had written of a book by Homer Sykes (another of those influenced by Stone.) Sadly ‘Mad Hatters’ remains unpublished. It’s a fine body of work but a book greatly in need of an editor – something John would never tolerate.

*The Navy gets in on the act with HMS Hayling*

Back to 2005, here is the text I wrote for My London Diary about the day:

I went to Hayling Island for the carnival with Paul and Michael, and it was a nice day. Paul drove us down - it isn't too long a drive from London, really a Londoner's day out. Hayling seems full of people from London on holiday, some with second homes there, others hiring them, often from family and friends.

*A beach tableau, complete with seagull*

Despite a longer than usual hold-up at Haslemere, we arrived just in time for the official opening. Everything was happening on the day, and it started with the crowning of the Carnival Queen and her retinue, then on to the Fancy Dress.

Then came the Baby Show, after which we went down to the other end of the town, where the carnival formed up in previous years. It seemed dead there, with more housing and less shops than before, and nothing was happening. People up that end are apparently pretty fed up to lose the carnival, and we were sorry to miss another meeting with 'the King' whose playing had been a major feature of previous years.

We grabbed a meal at a restaurant and then made our way back for the Dog Show, After which it was time for the parade to form up near the sea front. There were more mermaids than you could ever imagine and everyone seemed to be having fun and I took a lot of pictures.

More pictures from Hayling Island Carnival 2005 on My London Diary.

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An English Carnival – Hayling Island 2008

An English Carnival – Hayling Island: Back in the 1930s and 1950s every town or even village of a reasonable size would have an annual carnival where the inhabitants dressed up to take part in a carnival parade with groups competing with each other to create the best float. And there would be a carnival queen and a fancy dress competition, baby show, dog show and a good deal of largely harmless fun.

I think it was the growth of television that really killed most of these off. Rather than going out and making their own fun people entertained themselves by sitting in front of the box and watching others doing things. Organising carnivals involved a lot of work and fewer and fewer people came to join the carnival committee who did most of it. Our local carnival ended I think in the 1980s, though there is still one in a nearby town.

Carnivals also involved adults and children working together, something that became rather more problematic with media campaigns on “stranger danger” (family, relatives and friends are more often the problem.) Photographing children also became more difficult – and events involving them were one of the few things where I made sure always to wear my press card visibly to reassure people.

I think it was the disappearing of English carnivals that led to the Arts Council to give a grant to a couple of my friends to record those still taking place. And occasionally I would be persuaded to join one or both of them to go along with them.

Hayling Island on August 2nd 2008 was one of these occasions – and I’d also been there in 2001 and 2005.

Hayling Island is an island close to Porsmouth on the South Coast and has a road bridge from the mainland – there used also to be a railway but Beeching cut this in 1963 and the rail bridge was demolished three years later.

In the mid-20th century Hayling Island was a popular holiday resort for Londoners – part of part of ‘London-by-the-sea’ – and its population doubled in the summer months. Rather fewer go there now, but it remains a seaside resort.

In 2008 Hayling Island Carnival still had all the things an English Carnival should have – and you can see some in my pictures. But a few years later the carnival seems to have come to an end because of a shortage of volunteers.

Later in 2008 together with friends we held the show ‘English Carnival’ during the East London Photo Festival in a gallery in Shoreditch. Although the show is long closed you can still see all the work online.

Although many traditional English Carnivals have disappeared, new carnivals have come to take their place, and I’ve photographed a number of these. While the other photographers had pictures from traditional English carnivals, my contribution to that show was a set of 20 black and white pictures NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL 1990-2001

More on My London Diary from Hayling Island Carnival 2008.

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Carshalton Carnival, Merton Priory – 2004

Carshalton Carnival, Merton Priory: On Saturday 12th June 2004 I went to photograph the carnival in Carshalton and from there went on to an open day at Merton Priory, a scheduled ancient monument.

Carshalton Carnival

It seems unclear when Carshalton Carnival first began, but it was certainly taking place in the 1930s, usually held on the second Saturday in June.

By 2004 many other local carnivals were fading away but the event in Carshalton appeared to still be going strong, although there were fewer floats than I had expected and almost all the groups taking part seemed to be groups of children.

Carnivals like this, organised by the local Rotary and Round Table, raise money for various charities and the Rotary had brought their Santa waving from the chimney of a very small mobile home. Carshalton’s Lavender Farm was represented by a bike-hauled trailer.

The parade ended at the funfair taking place in Carshalton Park. I took a few pictures there too.

More pictures on My London Diary

Merton Priory Chapter House – Colliers Wood

Merton Abbey was one of the most important places in England from 1114 until Henry VIII dissolved it in 1538. The Abbey church was around the same size as Westminster Abbey and as fine a building as existing cathedrals such as Salisbury, but its fine stonework was taken down and used in other buildings, particularly Henry VI1I’s new Nonsuch Palace in nearby Cheam where building began the same year, though this in turn was demolished in 1683.

Merton Abbey was more important than Westminster or Canterbury. Here the first English laws, the eleven ‘statutes of merton’ were written in 1236, and its college established here moved to Oxford an became one of the three that started Oxford University in the 1260s.

The site remained derelict but part by the River Wandle became a calico printing works in 1724 using the power of a large waterwheel.

Alfred Liberty took over Littler’s Print Works here to print the fabrics for his Regent Street store, taking over the site completely in 1904 and using parts of it until 1977.

A little to the north in the Abbey site William Morris set up works in 1881 which produced decorated glass, printing fabrics and other goods until 1940. I don’t think anything remains of his works but there is a William Morris pub on the former Liberty site. And the world’s first public railway, the horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway, ran through the site beside the River Wandle in 1804, taking goods to the Thames at Wandsworth.

Archaelogical investigations of the site between 1914-1920 established the floor plans of the former Abbey, uncovering its foundations. In 1959 a garden was created on the site of the main altar of the church and ‘given in perpetuity‘ to the people of Merton.

This now lies several feet below the surface of the car park of the Sainsbury’s ‘savacentre’ along with most of the rest of the huge church site, with just a little still present beneath the edge of the supermarket. Some parts of the original walls around the large Abbey site have survived.

A new dual carriageway, Merantun Way was built for the new traffic to the various shops, and the ruins of the chapter house were preserved in an enclosed area under this. Local volunteers had formed the Merton Priory Trust in 2003 and were holding an open day when I visited.

Back then the area under the road was rather dimly lit and I don’t think I took any pictures of the interior with its foundations. Cerrtainly I put none online. Now it has much better lighting and a new visitor centre with a small museum and is open on Summer Sundays to the public. You can see pictures on the IanVisits site. The Wandle Valley site shows pictures of some of the work being carried out and there is much more on the Merton Priory site.

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