ANDOVER Carnival is 100 years old now.

A great deal of time and effort goes into arranging the Andover Carnival for 2024 in Vigo Park. The procession will be better than ever with many more floats being entered. We are all well aware of how much it costs to put a carnival on, and how hard the committee work to do this and the hours of their free time they give up.

April 1924 was the month that the idea of holding a yearly carnival was born, a gala week was held in the early part of September of that year. Ever since that time apart from the war years Andover has had its annual Carnival week with the result that a sum in the region of £25,000 has been raised for charity.

Originally the idea was to raise money to help build the Andover War Memorial Hospital. Cash poured in and even in those days it was not unusual for £1,000 to be raised during the Carnival week. Going back to the early days of the carnivals in Andover it is not generally known that prior to 1939 the Mayor of Andover of the day, who was also the President of the Carnival Committee, nominated the Carnival and the Junior Queens. The same policy was carried for a few years after 1946. When the carnival restarted again after the Second World War, it was not until 1952 that the Carnival Queen was chosen by public ballot for the first time.

Andover Lion’s Club Carnival also did the carnival.

READ MORE: Andover Carnival kicks off 100-day countdown to centenary celebration

Andover new style Carnival

We had a very short time to organise the carnival and Alex Gillies was the chairman. We had lots of support from businesses.

In 2008-2009 we did a walking procession, we had route A which started at The Wedge, Winton School and route B which started at the Scott’s Centre. We had the walking procession for two years. We worked with the businesses and the radio station,

Steve Randall and Maureen Fail brought the band group The Wanted, the teenagers absolutely loved them. In 2010 the floats came back which was a lot of hard work to raise funds. I did three months training doing kick boxing to get the money for insurance. This event happened in the Time Ring. I looked after the royals who opened businesses and different events, they had a great time, they are now aged between 21 and 24-years-old. There is lots we could tell you. We are really happy to see its still carrying on and being stronger for the Andover people.