What a wonderful weekend! Marvellous weather and one of the best carnivals ever made the spring holiday weekend for 1970 one of the very best on record for Watfordians.
Nearly 30,000 people packed into Cassiobury Park on Monday and Watford’s roads were crowded with traffic – but the weekend remained unmarred by trouble or accident.
Said a Watford Police spokesman: “In general the weekend went off quietly and the people were entirely good humoured.
“The carnival procession through the town went very well indeed,” he said. “It was a smooth passage, completed in record time.”
The spokesman said that although traffic in the town during the weekend was heavy, it was kept moving.
In the park itself, crowds were in a holiday spirit and there were few incidents of any sort and no accidents.
“In fact,” said the police spokesman, “we had absolutely no ‘bovver’ at all. The only real work we had was looking after lost children – but none of them was lost for very long.
“For a change the policemen, too, had a chance to enjoy the sun,” he added.
And sunshine it was – a total of more than 26 hours of bright sunshine over the three days, according to F. Darton & Co. Ltd.
Said a spokesman for the meteorological company: “With temperatures averaging in the 70s and more than the normal amount of sunshine for a Whitsun weekend, the weather was far better than we have had in recent years.
“It was even better than in 1966 – one of the best years on record,” he pointed out. There was no rainfall recorded in the town throughout the entire weekend.
The sun attracted many picnickers in the carnival site.
A total of 55,000 people came to the park over the three days.
Around every marquee there were groups of people spread on blankets, eating a picnic lunch or merely sunbathing.
For the first time this year mini-skirts, sunglasses and suntan lotion were very much in evidence.
Throughout the weekend more people were to be seen at the outdoor events, such as the 17th Century battle and the horse show, than in marquees.
All in all, the amazing success of the 1970 Watford Carnival and the grand wind up to the first Watford Festival, and the total absense of trouble, can all be attributed to the marvellous weather.
[From the Watford Observer of May 27, 1970]
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