Mother-of-three Arcadia Lockhart is still in ‘complete shock’ – not at the decision by the organisers of the Battle of Flowers to ditch the 65-year-old tradition of anointing a Miss Battle, but at being named the event’s new ambassador.
Arcadia, who lives in St Helier with her daughters Dakota (5), Nova (3) and her baby son Hunter, took part in the Miss Battle competition last year, but a crippling lack of confidence scuppered any chances of taking the crown.
‘It was really bad – I didn’t do at all well and it felt like everyone was staring at me on stage,’ says the 23-year-old. ‘At that time I wasn’t at all confident and I’ve had to work on myself a lot.
‘As a child I was always quite confident and I was heavily involved in performing arts at school at Haute Vallée. After leaving school I attended college full time – 9-5 pm – and also worked at Waitrose at Red Houses until 9 pm every evening. It was hard work but I managed to complete the course even though I was heavily pregnant, so I was proud of myself.
‘But after having my children, my confidence dipped quite drastically.’
She says the erosion of her self-esteem was in part down to motherhood.
‘When you become a parent, you sometimes forget who you are because you put so much into your children. A lot of personal circumstances change you as a person and I had been through quite a lot in the last few years.’
Although Arcadia is reluctant to elaborate, she says ‘it really hit home how unconfident I had become doing Miss Battle last year’.
She adds: ‘I was up on stage and I thought, “Wow, OK – the judges are asking me simple questions about who I am and I can’t even answer them because I’m so out of touch with myself”.
‘I had lost who I was a little bit.’
The same could have been said for the Battle’s own identity. In 116 years, only two events have had the power to temporarily prune the Battle of Flowers from Jersey’s crammed events calendar – World War One and World War Two. The pageant of colour and creativity has endured for more than a century, with the first flotilla of road-going floats passing along Victoria Avenue in August 1902.
From 1952, there was also a Miss Battle to represent the event, but in more recent years the competition to choose who to crown has increasingly been perceived by many as an outdated 1970s-style beauty pageant.
This prompted the organisers to make sweeping changes earlier this year – creating the Jersey Battle of Flowers Ambassador, axing the position of Mr Battle and introducing a Junior Ambassador role – Tobias Hosking is this year’s incumbent.
The changes came as event organiser Jackie Donald admitted the Battle format needed to ‘evolve and refresh’ or run the risk of dying out.
Under the new format, entries were welcomed from both males and females aged 17-25 for the Battle of Flowers Ambassador title – and Arcadia says it was this more inclusive playing field that emboldened her to put her name forward.
‘I went for the ambassador role this year because I knew the competition had changed slightly,’ explains Arcadia, who beat four other finalists to claim the title during a ceremony at Jersey Arts Centre last weekend.
‘I felt it was more inclusive and more accepting, and that gave me the confidence to speak out and say [to the judges] what my life is about and who I am.’
For Arcadia, breaking new ground as the first Jersey Battle of Flowers Ambassador is a platform to assert herself as she continues to overcome confidence issues.
‘Since having children I’ve had a fear of being judged by others and I feel like the only way I could overcome that was by doing something as big as this.’
Although the title of Miss Battle has been altered, what else is genuinely different? Could it be that the simple name change describing the face of Battle is a cosmetic tweak to appease critics?
‘The change from Miss Battle to an ambassador proves that [the event] is moving with the times,’ insists Arcadia.
Does it really prove that?
‘Yes, because I think the judges might be more accepting in terms of what they are now looking for [in a Battle ambassador] than before.’
Something else had changed. In previous years, Miss Battles were accompanied to media interviews with a chaperone from the event’s committee. When I interviewed the 2016 Miss Battle Aimee Le Brun on the eve of that year’s Battle parades, the chaperone tried to deflect a couple of my questions – even though Aimee, to her credit, answered them all in accomplished fashion.
It was refreshing to find that this time, the chaperone let me conduct the interview with Arcadia without attempting to cut short any potentially awkward questions.
‘There are no limits on what you can say,’ chaperone Vicky Trehorel told Arcadia as we chatted on a bench in Howard Davis Park.
So when I asked Arcadia whether she thought the Miss Battle pageant was a sexist and regressive beauty show, Arcadia was free to speak her mind uninterrupted.
‘I don’t think it was ever a beauty pageant – Miss Battles still had to work on themselves a lot and be confident. But I think people had the wrong view of it so in that sense the change [to having an ambassador] was long overdue.’
For Arcadia, becoming the Battle’s first ambassador was truly a ‘dream come true’.
‘I never expected to be named ambassador because I was a young mum up against people who had been given so many opportunities and I…’ Her voice trails off as she wipes some emerging tears from her eyes.
‘I’m basically trying to do the best I can with the opportunities I’ve had,’ she says in a quivering tone. ‘With the creation of the ambassador role I felt it was a chance to show that someone like me who has had a lack of opportunity, can still go for something as big as this.’
The frown on her face fades and a wide smile takes over as she adds: ‘It’s amazing because I’ve literally been dreaming about [becoming the face of Battle] since I was a child.’
As a young girl, Arcadia would join the massed ranks of Battle fans on the waterfront to watch the joyful exhibition of an island community’s creativity float down Victoria Avenue.
‘When I was a bit older I would help out with the smaller floats. I got more involved in Battle when I took part one year on the Bidan Family and Friends’ Revellers of the Caribbean float as I happened to know one of the participants.
‘I thought it was absolutely magical and I loved seeing Battle Bee when I was little. The whole Battle community was really lovely and kind.’
Her own compassion and empathetic ability have assisted her in her voluntary work – she helps out once a week at Brighter Futures at The Bridge. The charity supports parents, carers, children and young people by offering a range of personal development, educational and second-chance learning programmes, in addition to helping parents and carers with self-esteem issues and communication skills.
‘It can literally be about helping anyone who needs support,’ explains Arcadia, who is currently training to be a counsellor. ‘I like to do voluntary work that helps others because I really care.
‘And it’s lovely that this year the Variety Club is the chosen charity for the Battle of Flowers because Variety do an awful lot for Brighter Futures and they always go the extra mile for anyone who needs help.’
She will take her altruistic outlook into Battle.
‘As Battle ambassador I want to inspire more young people to get involved in Battle because they are Jersey’s future.
‘And I hope that by someone like me being the ambassador will inspire others to know that they can achieve what they want to.’
Just as former Miss Battles did in the past, Arcadia will lead the day parade on 9 August and the moonlight parade the following day.
‘I still can’t believe this is all happening,’ she exclaims.
That this hardworking, intelligent and charismatic young woman remains amazed that she could ever have been named Battle ambassador in the first place, is perhaps the biggest surprise of all.
