Description:The pageant of Birmingham of 1938 was a spectacle of epic proportion. Through the course of its 135 minutes it covered the period beginning in prehistory right up to modern trade unionism, using at least 5000 performers in full costume to illustrate 8 separate episodes in Birmingham’s story. This, like all public performance, was only made possible by the meticulous planning brought about by the the enthusiasm and hard work of an army of backstage staff engaged in just 11 weeks of feverish preparation.
The nerve centre of this preparation was the Cambridge Street Workshop where the pageant was planned and coordinated and where the thousands of costumes were designed, fitted and tailored. It was here that the valiant band of talented workers attacked the enormous task with impressive gusto.
The person tasked with the staging of Birmingham’s centuries of history was Ms. Gwen Lally, the greatly experienced pageant master. Not only did she bring with her the knowledge gained through the production of countless pageants but also the perfect genius for infecting her underlings with her native enthusiasm.
Even before Ms. Lally took the reigns the Wardrobe Mistress Ms. Jean Campbell had long been at work in her role of designing costumes, sourcing and buying huge rolls of material (many miles of fabric were used for pageant costumes) and supervising, enthusing and directing her staff of volunteer seemstresses, She described her own role as the “Queen of Rags”.
At the same time Mr. Bernard Coaling would be busying himself in the workshop to meet the arduous responsibility of producing many different sets and prehistoric dinosaurs. He gained a reputation for the ability to create anything from a few sheets of plywood and a pot of glue. No one who saw the fearsome dinosaurs Egbert, Ogbert and the not quite-so-fearsome Little Sidney could possibly disagree.
Bossing the work room was Ms. Ann Fisher who had worked with Gwen Lally on a number of other occasions. It was she and her staff that produced the hundreds of bespoke cloaks, crinolines, belts and prehistoric garb individually tailored to their owner.
Interestingly over 50 of the participants were injured in the 12 days that the pageant put on a performance. One man “was knocked silly” by the greaved foot of a knight as he rode past. Others were injured by the arrows shot during the episode representing the Battle of Crecy. It was after this particular battle during one performance that the single most dangerous incident occurred. As the death carts came out followed by a crowd of peasants to clear the field of the dead a horse pulling one of these carts was startled by something and careered across the performance area spilling people from the cart and forcing the actors playing dead to break character and jump out of the way of the equine menace. Many were injured during the incident though thankfully no one seriously.
Text and research by Neil McComb.