Mrs Bidan, who died in April, aged 70, entered an individual float into the annual carnival for more than three decades – and despite serious illness, she designed and planned everything for this year’s family entry, called Ooh La La, before her death.
Her son Chris, who is now responsible for the Bidan and Friends Battle team, said: ‘Mum had the idea for this float for a couple of years, but because the design is for quite a big float we had to save quite a bit of money to do it.
‘She did the design just before Christmas and she chose the flowers, the colours, and even chose all of the costumes. About two weeks before she passed away she was still talking about the flowers. We’re using 25,000 stems and there’s nine flowers to a stem, so that is a lot of flowers!
Mrs Bidan entered her first Battle exhibit in 1980 and continued until 2007, when she took a break due to ill health. She returned for one more year in 2008, before retiring and handing over the reins to her son, Chris, although she continued to remain heavily involved with the family float.
Don’t miss our daily Battle countdown page in the JEP, featuring interviews with exhibitors and archive photographs.
