Family enters Battle of Flowers for more than three decades

Friday 26 August 2022

A family who has been entering the Battle of Flowers for more than 30 years has said “it’s not about the winning”.

Roslyn Jackson used to enter the competition firstly with her family and then with her husband, David, and their own children and now grandchildren.

At yesterday’s event, the family entered a float showcasing a three-and-a-half metre tall Tyrannosaurus Rex with around 1,000 tissue paper flowers.

Pictured: David Jackson handmade the teeth for the T-Rex head out of wood. 

“Every year we try and go bigger and better than the year before and try to think of something different. It’s not about the winning for us, it’s about continuing the tradition as a family,” said Mr Jackson.

“We do it for a laugh and to have fun together; it’s a big commitment and a lot of work, but it’s worth it.”

Mr Jackson said this year’s float had taken “hundreds of hours” of work.

“We started making the T-rex head just after Christmas. I found a template online and thought it would be a great idea to do a dinosaur float, particularly for something for boys to get to see because, often, a lot of floats are more for girls,” he said.

“The head is solid cardboard with hundreds of pieces; it’s a lot heavier than it looks. There was no template for the body so we have done our best to make it realistic.”

Mr Jackson said that most of the float was made from recycled materials.

Pictured: David and Roslyn Jackson build and decorate floats for the Battle of Flowers with their children and grandchildren. 

“There are two steel rods running through the body, which came from our greenhouse. All the wire we’ve used is also from the greenhouse and all the cardboard is recycled. The tissue paper was left over from our float last year, which was a Frozen-theme float, which is why the dinosaurs are blue,” said Mr Jackson. 

Mrs Jackson commented: “We have spent hundred of hours on this float; my sun lounge has been looking like a cardboard factory for months. It’s taken a lot of trial and error over the years but we are getting better each year.”

Despite not focusing on the competition, the family has experienced success over the years. “We have won a few times, but sadly two of the years that we won we didn’t have the trophy because it hadn’t been returned by the previous winners. That was a bit disappointing for the kids, but we still all had fun,” said Mrs Jackson.

“We will definitely keep entering each year because we want to be a part of making sure that this event continues because it’s fantastic for the island.”

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