A letter from Borth carnival

Niall Griffiths

Borth. I’ve always quite liked Borth, that one-street town between bog and ocean, midge-ridden, the spectral bells ringing from Cantrae’r Gwaelod, the gwrach y cors forming out of the drifting mist-wisps. Pints on the beach behind the Vic, waiting for the scorch of sunset, peeling an eye for a dolphin’s dorsal fin. Next parish, New York. Edge of the contiguous continent (the Chunnel allows that contiguity). The Friendship Inn and the wonders of it’s upstairs grotto; quirky clothes and novelty knick-knackery and shelves of battered books from which I’ve never failed to find a gem.

Berserk

This is the place where William Hope Hodgson wrote one of the most berserk books ever – The House on the Borderland. The setting is supposedly Ireland, but it is recognisably Borthian, with the expanse of the bog and the distant gauzy mountains in which the protagonist finds the pit that houses a giant demonic donkey that wears a necklace of human skulls and has a private Praetorian Guard of humanoid, bipedal, scuttling pigs (see? Berserk). This is the Welsh wild west. Expect tumbleweeds and shoot-outs and drifters in ponchos on horseback.

Sardines

And so to the Carnival.

Held every year on the first Friday of August, presumably to catch clement weather, but this is the western lands; rain is either happening or on its way. The town becomes a suburb of Birmingham in the summer, such is the volume of tourists from there (a straight-through train from New Street facilitates this), and the trains are sardine-cans; the intensity of the crush in the carriage and the sheer heat that wafts out of the doors, the beetroot and helpless faces, prompts me to catch the bus instead. I like humanity, but not in such numbers or in such armpitty proximity. No thanks.

Spectacle

Carnival Borth from above is a spectacle – the banners and the bouncy castles and the music and the crowds. It transmits a thrill. Pop-up bars and food vans. It’s barely afternoon but the evidence of intoxication is already leaning against the old walls and lining the main street. I take a stiffener and hunch under an awning to watch the parade pass.

Leprechauns

Leprechauns Carnival Queen. ABBA. Tractors, of course, and brides holding aloft bottles of wine and WKD (‘My Big Fat Welsh Wedding’). Leprechauns having a jig and caper (fresh from Ireland, just over the waves). There’s an ambulance and a small fire truck and I’m not certain whether they’re part of the parade or genuine emanations of the emergency services (they appear old, antiquely so, but this is west Wales). The theme from Ghostbusters, a float of Witches, and I wonder if the gwrach looks on – does she tut or nod? Does she disapprove of this dilution of her quiddity or grant it her impish imprimatur?

There is the smell of ozone from the sea and rotting weed from both the shore and the bog. Vinegar and beer. Drag queens strut and stamp by in towering heels; there is to be a competition for best drag that evening (the judging criteria for which I’m intrigued to discover). They bring a blaze of colour to an already fiery situation. Their fright-wigs bounce above the heads of the shorter mortals as they pass.

Tacky splat

Drift through it all. There’s a beautiful sense of being apart from the tacky splat and clamour of the wider world. This is a place of and to itself. The physical, geographical separateness of it is augmented by the feeling of having stepped into a siding of the world where the normal rules have been suspended.

This little town on the very edge of Europe. A warehouse has been re-purposed as a dance hall with a cider bar and a cocktail bar and the DJ has admirably eclectic tastes – some shuffle dance stuff followed by the Violent Femmes followed by some old punk followed by some house followed by some rap. The crowd moves and mixes and ripples like tall marsh-grass in a breeze. The drink is tidal. I can hear a cheer from Seithenyn in the crash of the surf, behind the music, and what better way to honour his abandoned carousal, his calamitous binge spirit, than this?

Roll on summer ’25.