2012 Carnival

With great regret the carnival committee took the decision to cancel the 2012 carnival on the Tuesday before the event, due to the state of the Rec.

Everyone in the UK will remember the summer of 2012, with more or less continuous rain from April through to July.  At the time the decision was made to cancel the Rec was at least twice as boggy as Chris Harbut (one of the longstanding carnival committee members) had ever known it, and the forecast was for more heavy rain over the next few days.

As it happened, the weather for the end of that week wasn’t too bad, but the condition of the Rec would still have prevented any vehicles driving on it.

A few things did still go ahead, and you can see details of them below:

The 2012 carnival queen

Although the carnival and parade were cancelled for 2012, the carnival queen crowning still went ahead, with a service and party at Chisworth Methodist church (see pictures below). The 2012 carnival queen, attendants and mascots were as follows:

The retiring 2011 carnival queen was Laura Noone, with Layla Brown as her deputy and Olivia Winter, Poppy Rayson and Gabrielle Hamilton as attendants.

Here are some pictures to remember the day!

Scarecrows of 2012

The winners of the 2012 scarecrow competition (which went ahead despite the cancellation of the carnival itself) were:

• Sailing for gold (the Cadwell family)
• Sync or swim (the Rayson family)
• Lighting the way

Our thanks to all who took part. Here are some photos – see if yours is among them!

Well-dressing from 2012

The 2012 well-dressings still went ahead, despite the main carnival being cancelled:

As ever, it’s impressive just how much work goes into making these look so good.

Here’s to a drier 2013!