Newport Carnival film shot in 1971

This film was shot during a carnival in the town of Newport probably in the year 1971.

The film is a Standard 8, Kodachrome which shows all the colour depth and brilliance which is the trademark of that film type, helped by the film being taken on a brilliant sunny day.

In order to find the date and location of this film I didn’t need to resort to google, as I normally would. The clues are in the film itself written on the sides of the floats as they pass in front of the camera. On one of the early floats is a board which says, ‘Newport Jubilee Carnival Queen’ and a bit later another float has a scene from The Mikado with a sign above which says, ‘Mikado 1971’. From these two I’ve deduced that this is the Newport Carnival which took place in 1971.

It is possible however that the ‘Jubilee’ in the first float refers to the Queen’s Silver Jubilee which occurred in 1977 and was celebrated with events such as this all over the country((I remember my cousin and I performing an impromptu concert on his front lawn during the jubilee celebrations in Fakenham. Since we’d only been playing guitar for a few months I suspect it didn’t sound good! He has subsequently gone on to play in many bands and still regularly gigs – I however can hardly play a chord anymore. ))

Newport Carnival Film

So, below is the film taken at Newport Carnival. It basically shows a military band and then a series of floats processing along the road and the actual location within Newport is difficult to find because not much of the houses and street can be seen. Possibly someone from Newport who knows the town well would be able to provide that information.