By Russell Labey
AT six years old I woke one August morning to find a 14ft purple toadstool in the garden. Alongside it stood a huge bearded gnome and, across the lawn, his friend was driving a life-size yellow car. My brother and sister and I were transfixed with wonder.
It was, of course, a morning after the Battle of Flowers, when before dawn floats would return to their home parishes. Grouville won Prix d’Honneur in 1970 and our father contrived to surprise us by lifting Noddy and Big Ears from the float on the road, over our high garden wall, without making a sound. We still don’t know how he did it and he’s no longer here to tell us, but it was magic.
Cut forward 50 years and I find myself chairman of the organisation, a role I had zero ambition to fulfil and actively avoided. Battle management is notorious, ‘a poisoned chalice’ someone said. That I could do without, but relented. I guess because I don’t want the magic to end.
As far as the audience is concerned the exhibits should appear as if wafted here from paradise or the Hogwarts Express, that’s all it needs to know. A peek behind the curtain, however, reveals designers working 60-hour weeks, alongside carpenters and welders, long before a single flower arrives in the shed. Blooms that will enhance but also disguise the hard graft. What converts those long hours from a chore to a passion is the creative nature of the endeavour.
In tandem with the build, teams of ‘harestailers’ begin creating evermore sophisticated works of art with the tiny dried flower of the harestail grass, Lagurus ovatus. Lagurus is, in fact, the Latin name not for the hare but the steppe lemming. Examine your lemming and you’ll soon spot the similarity. There’s an irony here…
At the height of its award-winning powers in 1975, Grouville entered the arena with, ‘The Glory That Was Greece’. Long title, longest ever float, and it took an age to complete the decoration. I remember my mum returning home at 6.30am after the final flower had been applied, just as we were getting up, excited for Battle day. She looked exhausted but also deflated.
‘The Glory That Was Greece’ was a majestic design on paper: Doric columns; Greek deities and twice life-size spear-wielding hoplite warriors, all faithfully and expertly realised. When it finally hit Victoria Avenue, it bombed with the judges. Grouville came away empty handed.
That’s why mum was so unusually downbeat. She knew. They all did. Somehow this great design didn’t make the transfer from page to stage and like Lagurus lagurus they were heading for inevitable disaster.
What drove them on till dawn, relentlessly sticking flowers on an unforgiving behemoth? Community spirit.
Creativity and community combined represent the value to Jersey of the Battle of Flowers. It takes an army of over 2,000 volunteers to make it happen; keeping our unique skills and tradition alive; our Island identity; working hard and at the end of it all, together with the rest of the Island and our visitors, partying hard. And when the party’s over for one year, win or lose, they begin to plan for the next.
Each year our master builders aim higher, attempt to go that little bit further in pursuit of the supreme exhibit. The Battle executive I currently helm must match that ambition, aspire to take the event to the next level, and then again and again.
I can’t promise to have all the answers but I do have ideas – lots of them. As a theatre director telling a story on a stage, I try to find special moments of unique theatricality to surprise, delight or emphasise as both a reward for the audience and a reminder of the experience it can only find in live theatre. On the parade stage we should do the same and I can already tell from where those special moments will come this Friday and Saturday. There are some truly astounding exhibits, and, as a bit of a Battle anorak, it’s exciting to see innovations in the art of exhibit engineering.
Presenting Jersey’s first drone light show as the finale to the Moonlight Parade is exciting too and something new events director Adam Flynn made happen in lightning-quick time: finding our drone pilots, FlightShows, and, crucially, a sponsor.
Which brings me to the third leg of our ambition/innovation stool – funding. Butterfield have given us financial support but also hope that, in bringing communities together to mount Jersey’s biggest annual event, we can attract the commercial sponsors vital to our development. To gear up we’ve got to wise up to reality and potential and buddy-up with business. It’s not just about the money, but new involvement.
The time change to 5pm on a Friday, running the little trains around the arena for those who find the walk to their seats daunting, our social media blitz of recent months, is all about improving access to the Battle and broadening our appeal and reach.
There’s scope to increase participation in the parades, too. The Battle Association has never been an exclusive club; anyone can join, anyone can enter the parade and we’re here to help you do that – especially if it’s your first time. You won’t have to ask twice for advice from any of our experienced exhibitors who love to share their knowledge.
The immediate aftermath of the Battle always sees a spike in enthusiasm and ideas which then vanish like summer dew with the morning mist. Talk to me, let’s explore what you can do for Battle and what Battle can do for you. Across two parades we have a captive audience of thousands.
‘Noddy in Toyland’ on our front lawn vanished too one morning; all that was left were some aster petals and neat patches of yellow grass. But what a memory. Let’s make some more…
