Bristol Breakfasts: Cleo Lake

Saturday, July 5 2014

With St Paul’s Carnival today, in the latest Bristol Breakfasts interview, Bristol Culture editor Martin Booth speaks to chair of the carnival board, Cleo Lake. Illustration by Shauna Summers.

It’s a brave person indeed to take on the mantle of organising the St Paul’s Carnival, which will see some 100,000 people on the streets from midday to midnight today in what is always Bristol’s biggest free party of the year.

Except it’s not strictly free.

A text donation number hasn’t raised sufficient funds to swell the charity’s coffers, so this year Cleo Lake and her team are trying something new: asking visitors to the carnival to buy at least one drink from four official “pledge bars”.

“People expect things for free but if you take it away there’s a big uproar,” says Cleo, with the fact that the carnival was cancelled in 2012 due to safety concerns after previously being scaled back still fresh in everybody’s minds.

Cleo became chair of the board of trustees of St Paul’s Carnival soon after the event’s cancellation two years’ ago.

It was as a pupil at Easton Road Primary School that she first took part in the carnival’s famous masquerade. That was in the 1980s when the procession started at the old Bristol Rovers ground in Eastville.

After gaining an assisted place to Colston’s Girls and studying French and law at UWE, a legal career beckoned but instead Cleo became a dancer.

That’s when she is not ensuring the future of the carnival, being a mother of three and even finding time to manage two reggae bands.

Her choice of Dub Lounge on Stokes Croft as the venue for our breakfast is because it’s a place she is thinking of putting on one of the bands – and she is also friends with Junior the chef, also saxophonist in Bristol Reggae Orchestra.

So what does carnival mean to Cleo?

“Inspiration. It’s a time of feeling free. It’s the one day for everyone in Bristol regardless of background and how much money you do or don’t have in your wallet. It’s a time where you can really enjoy yourself and let yourself go.

“There’s something liberating about being on the streets and dancing. Vibrating to massive bass lines is really important as well!”

Cleo doesn’t have too much control over the creative side of the carnival, which she says can be frustrating at times.

Her own ideas for the future include a longer parade and more visual art like the mural of the Empire Windrush on Campbell Street designed last year:

“So I’d like to see that continue,” says Cleo, sipping a green tea. “Also projections in the nighttime, things that can educate people in a very subconscious way just through images.

“I’d love to say that we should continue to party until the sun comes up like we did in the old days, but I think that’s a little far-fetched now given the numbers.”

When I mention the word curfew, Cleo bridles but still laughs her infectious laugh. So we decide to call it a cut-off time instead.

“All the board members would be preferring to go until two or later. However, there are various things we have to balance.

“The carnival at the moment couldn’t go ahead without the support of the ambulance service and the police. So we have to take into consideration the other pressures on other agencies who make the whole thing happen.”

Today’s carnival will finish at midnight, although when the 15 sound systems fall silent the indoor block parties will start, including a party organised by Ujima and BCFM in the Malcolm X Centre.

Cleo grew up in Easton and now lives in St Paul’s, although she says she also enjoys spending time in places like Stokes Croft and Clifton Village.

“Sometimes when you’re born and live in the same place, you have a bit of a love-hate relationship at times. You feel like you might do better if you go outside of it for a while. I spent about eight months in Strasbourg as a student which was great.

“I would always have a base in Bristol but I don’t think I’ll live here my whole life. There’s a whole world out there. Bristol is a great city. I suppose my children are something that has kept me here but I would like to travel.

“I like the quiet life. I like the best of both worlds. There are challenges in the neighbourhood but I feel as if I should stay. If I go that’s one less voice. Plus the hose prices will rocket up as soon as Dove Lane is done so I’m sticking in there!”

Cleo says it herself about being a strong voice in her community, one which is listened to by others and one which also likes to get things done.

“That’s one of the reasons why I joined the board at carnival. To an extent it comes down to parenting. I also had a very strong, diverse peer group at Easton Road primary school.

“It’s hard for me not to be concerned by some of the things happening within my own cultural group.

“It’s hard to generalise but I live in an area where I do see deprivation. I feel that there’s still a journey to go. But nations fall and rise and I’m hoping that it will be on the rise again.”

www.stpaulscarnival.co.uk

Dub Lounge

36 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3QD