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Call for help from matriarch of the Carnival dance
Simon Wroe finds Jean Bernard – at 83, still a key player in the Notting Hill extravaganza – defiant in our hard economic times
I AM the head, the watchman, the fighter, the gun-lady,” declares Jean Bernard, 83-year-old Camden social worker turned queen of the dance. “I run my band discreetly and we protect our people, black, white, green or blue, whoever comes with us.”
Carnival fever is in the air. This weekend, sweet soca music and frenzied dancing will fill the streets of Notting Hill. It is the biggest party in London, attended by millions every year, but when Mrs Bernard talks about it it sounds like war.
A regal Trinidadian lady with immaculately coiffured hair and a fiery glint in her eye, Mrs Bernard is the leader of the PATO (Pioneers and Their Offspring) Carnival Club, one of the oldest of the 140 “bands” or floats at the event. It has “come out on the road” for 30 years; but now a shadow of uncertainty looms over proceedings.
At the PATO headquarters – the sparse first-floor maisonette in Caversham Road, Kentish Town, where Mrs Bernard lives with her youngest son, Matthew, and an exhausted collie named Jessica (after the Angela Lansbury character in Murder She Wrote) – the pressure is mounting.
With five days to go, the band has yet to secure a truck, generator, sound system or security detail. The masqueraders’ costumes, still unfinished, are in a lock-up at the band’s local “camp”, the Queen’s Crescent Community Centre.
“Because of the [credit] crunch it has been laborious. It’s very difficult to get sponsors this year. We’re not getting the money. Many of the bands are not coming out but we’re determined. We are coming with a great mass of colours to show the world who we are,” says Mrs Bernard. Flanked by her disciples – Matthew, 34, and eldest son Peter, a 46-year-old internet TV producer – she is in battle mode.
“He, that little wimp, thinks I fell to the ground now and he can say or do what he likes,” she says, referring to an absent organiser. “They trying to palm me down, and that is why I sat down and said ‘I got to come out’. He has never spoke to me so disrespec’ful. I’m sweet, but I’ll fix him.”
Competition is fierce between the carnival bands and Mrs Bernard has a lot to lose. Their Trinidad-based costume designer, Follette Eustace, is one of the best in the world, although this year they have run out of money to pay him. Facing a dearth of funding, Mrs Bernard has put £3,000 of her life-savings into the project but it is small beer in Carnival terms: the average float costs between £15,000 and £20,000.
The Bernards are asking the banks for last-minute loans and praying businesses will advertise with them. On the kitchen wall, among faded pictures of running brooks, a technicolour Son of God holds up a hand in blessing with the words “Jesus I Trust in You” emblazoned underneath.
Such faith in the powers that be was not always necessary. In the good old days, PATO attracted the sponsorship of US car giant Ford, Camden Council, the Arts Council and Moneygram.
“The nightmare started” about five years ago, according to Peter. The Arts Council changed their policy and decided to just fund six bands, the Ford deal ran out, and Camden invested their money in local versions of the Carnival. “There’s a division now between those bands that are very well funded and those that aren’t funded at all,” he adds.
Mrs Bernard takes a more conspiratorial view. “I have big enemies there, sitting as the judges. I was tops. The politics couldn’t touch me. They used to call me Mrs Ford. I was looking so beautiful because I knew I had enemies. It was a life of jealousy – they were glory days. Now they hate the dirt I walk on.”
Mrs Bernard is vague on dates, but she believes she came to England in 1957. She remembers the whole of the East End was flattened by bombs when she arrived and “only the banks in the city was up”. “I didn’t come on no Windrush in a boat. I came on a plane,” she says proudly. “I came to study designing. It was rough anyway. If you wanted to rent somewhere it was ‘No dogs, no Irish, no blacks’.”
She lived in the Midlands with her Trinidadian husband Titus, a railway inspector, and their six children. One year, while on a trip to London, she saw the Carnival and “felt it in her blood”. Titus died 20 years ago and the rest of the family have gradually moved away from London and PATO. Despite her age, Mrs Bernard still dances, now with the aide of a stick, at the front of the float. Sometimes she hitches up her skirt. “I think it’s something that comes from the heart of love. All the stress you suffer through the year, you can forget it for two days. I dance my special dance, my hands go up, and they say ‘That’s Jean’.”
At this point Matthew enters, phone in hand. A nervous male voice comes on loudspeaker, talking 100 to the dozen: “This is a big responsibility… All the unexpected things have gone wrong... I don’t trust anyone when it comes to Carnival.”
“Hold on a minute, sweetheart,” coos Mrs Bernard. “Don’t be so worried. What do you want me to amend?”
The organiser falters. “I love you Jean, you’re my mother. You’re close to me. I’m not trying to duck and dive. I’m frightened things haven’t been done that should be done and there’s still a relaxed atmosphere.”
Mrs Bernard turns to the room.
“He said we are too cool. But you cannot be woo-haa woo-haa. We’ve got to be calm. We are not hot types. We are not fighting.”
Then she turns back to the phone: “You’re lucky you catch me well, ’cos I would collapse right here and leave you. Remember that I’m a Carnivalist as well. We hot, we jumping up when the time comes. Trust me, we are going as a family and we are not going to let you down.”
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