Carnival queens just don’t add up

But the number may not be as high as people would expect, as he explains in his research into the history of the now annual summer event.

Robin explains that the ‘official’ tally should bring us up to the 81st queen. But things are not so straightforward.

The first recognised Kenilworth Carnival was in 1926. Organised by members of the Working Men’s Club, it consisted of nothing but a parade through town and evening dancing in the park.

It was not until 1928 that the festival, used for fundraising, saw a “Queen of the Carnival” chosen for the first time, creating a disparity of two between the number of known queens and town carnivals.

During the war years the looming threat of invasion meant that the 1940 carnival was cancelled at the last minute despite a queen, Rosalind Booden, already having been chosen -leading to another mismatch of the numbers.

Robin explained how these stories, together with a gap until the carnival was revived in 1947, give us in 2013 our 80th queen, 81st procession, but 82nd occasion.

After the war the carnival was taken over by the British Legion members for their own funds and has continued to be run continuously since to the benefit of a wide variety of town charities and causes.

Robin said: “In my opinion, continuing fundraising in this way during the war years is something the town should be proud of, and should be added to the annals of the event. Although by adding in one or more of these three ‘lost’ carnivals it means that last year’s 80th celebrations were misplaced and that we are a lot closer to the 100th than was realised.”

The history of the carnival’s first 25 years will be included in Robin’s next book in which he hopes to be able to print the photographs of all the carnival queens.

Anyone who can help, can contact him at www.victoriankenilworth.co.uk

l Last week’s Nostalgia article on Arthur Kilby was written by the Leamington History Group but was missing the appropriate accreditation. Our apologies to all concerned for the omission - Editor