St Joseph Kid­dies Car­ni­val reg­u­lars were all re­mark­ing about this year’s high-qual­i­ty cos­tumes pre­sent­ed at the an­nu­al pa­rade in the old town on Car­ni­val Sun­day.

Through loom­ing clouds, that wait­ed till the pa­rade was through be­fore de­liv­er­ing buck­et-a-drop rain­fall, the or­gan­is­ers kept things rolling smooth­ly along as the crowd grew in size and en­thu­si­asm.

The peo­ple in the ice cream van along the King Street route did not have a spare mo­ment, nei­ther did neigh­bour­hood busy-bee Mar­jorie Phillips and her crew serv­ing food next to the judges’ booth op­po­site the Fulchan house.

Last year’s Large Band win­ners, House of Jacqui, which this year pre­sent­ed a trib­ute to the gold­en age of ca­lyp­so en­ti­tled Kaiso Kaiso, pa­rad­ed in style fea­tur­ing some of the larg­er, more elab­o­rate cos­tumes on the day.

They fol­lowed a live­ly pre­sen­ta­tion by De Charm­ers called: Peace, Love and To­geth­er­ness with some of the younger mas­quer­aders on dis­play. Be­winged young­sters in white passed the judges’ ta­ble along a damp road­way.

Yolande and As­so­ciates’ The Beau­ty of Car­ni­val was a cel­e­bra­tion of cel­e­bra­tions. The em­pha­sis was on colour, glit­ter and rev­el­ry. Chore­o­graphed en­tries by the mas­quer­aders were a high­light of their pre­sen­ta­tion.

Aman­da and Pamela, of St Joseph, pre­sent­ed Par­ty We Love with an em­pha­sis on colour and lace and de­pic­tions of old-time “pret­ty mas.” Green Hill Kid­dies Unit­ed, an­oth­er St Joseph band, did a pre­sen­ta­tion on en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion called Uni­ty of Roy­al­ty.

Then came Vanes­sa and Friends’ Re­mem­ber­ing the Grand­mas­ter (Lord Kitch­en­er). Each sec­tion rep­re­sent­ed a lead­ing song by the late ca­lyp­so bard. It was one of the big­ger bands and each sec­tion was led on stage by bright­ly out­fit­ted young Lord Kitch­en­ers with trade­mark suits and match­ing hats.

Rain­o­ra­ma, for ex­am­ple, was fol­lowed by Sug­ar Bum Bum and Bees Melody and the pre­sen­ta­tion closed with To­co Band – laden co­conut trees, round the neck steel­pans and all.

Protest in Folk­lore Band by Car­ni­val Arts Col­lege and led by David Williams was among the more in­ter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tions with sec­tions based on folk­lore char­ac­ters and their bat­tles to pre­serve na­ture and an­tiq­ui­ty.

The pa­rade end­ed with Trou­bled Wa­ters – a pre­sen­ta­tion by Think It. Cre­ate It. By that time the rain­clouds had start­ed los­ing pa­tience and was about to send its bless­ings down on the St Joseph crowd.

An­oth­er well-or­gan­ised, colour­ful and en­joy­able out­ing for the St Joseph neigh­bour­hood, and vis­it­ing bands and mas­quer­aders from oth­er towns and vil­lages. Or­gan­is­er Reynold Ol­livierre and his team seemed pleased with the out­come.