"My
final Carnival message is an appeal to every man, woman and child
in Long Eaton to be a cog in the Carnival wheel. If they determine
to be so, the wheel will go smoothly and the utmost success will
be ours." JW Martin, Chairman Long Eaton Hospital
Carnival Committee
(source Long Eaton Advertiser, 11th September 1931)
This message, published on the first night of the Carnival revelries,
ushered in what was later described as 'Long Eaton's Gay and Joyous
week' - the first Long Eaton Hospital Carnival.
Held in September 1931, a fortnight or so after
the now long vanished Long Eaton Wakes, the townsfolk organised
a week long schedule of events, gala dinners, concerts and parades.
This format would continue for eight years until 1939, where with
the the event was shortened to four days in July. The ultimate
aim of the events was to raising funds for local hospitals, and
for the people of Long Eaton to show their indebtedness to them.
Local people duly rose to the challenge, some £10,980 being
raised in the years 1932-34.
The weeks were preceded by, amongst other things, the sale of
the Carnival program -'The Ram', whose pages reveal the depth
of community involvement with the project; in 1934
over 250 people are named, sitting on the executive and ten sub-committees,
the largest of which - the Parade Committee- numbered some 77
citizens.
Reprised in 1948, when ten thousand people attended
to witness the crowning of the Carnival Queen, the old format
survived until 1950.
Jumping quickly to 1970, the committee of the
Long Eaton Festival of Music and the Arts, [an event which had
provided similar events in the intervening years,] agreed to start
the Carnival as the opener for their week long activities, and
in 1971, the Long Eaton Advertiser reported: "It looked like colourful chaos"
and, "It was as if the whole of Long Eaton had come to see
the show"
The modern carnival continued successfully throughout the three
decades up to 2000, whereupon the Carnival Committee
felt unable to continue with the exhausting schedule of organisation.
