Colourful funeral for city’s King of Carnival

THE life of a well-loved homeless man known as the King of Carnival was celebrated with a riot of colour.

Keith Hitchcock had lived on the streets of the Cardiff for most of his life, and loved nothing more than meeting others at the soup run near Marks & Spencer on Queen Street.

He was able to find somewhere to live a decade ago, and made Nelson House in Butetown his home.

But just over five years ago, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He died at his home on September 24, aged 71.

The support workers who looked after him in his final years were by his side until the end.

One of them, Mark Dunn, said: “He completed his bucket list – he went on a plane, a helicopter to the Isle of Wight and to Weston-super-Mare. This was the last his bucket list – to go to his funeral on a horse and carriage. It will be his last ride.”

Members of Cardiff’s carnival community wanted to pay their respects to the man they called Carnival Keith.

Every year, for three weeks, Keith would throw himself into the festivities – by helping to plan, organise and make his own costume for the show.

And there was only one way the community wanted to send him off – by giving him the best parade to his final resting place. Following a white carriage, the carnival members donned their most extravagant outfits and followed the procession down Bute Street, before heading to Thornhill Crematorium for his funeral.

Steve Fletcher, who organised the Cardiff Carnival for 26 years, said: “The very first one took place in 1990 and I distinctly remember meeting Keith for the first time ever on the small stage inside Cardiff Castle, where we finished the first one, and he asked me if he could get involved.

“I explained how to get involved, and then over the following years he was the member of the Cardiff community who performed and danced through the streets more times than any other. There were 26 Cardiff carnivals, and Keith did 22 of them.

“He did all of them as the great carnival tradition, he was a travesty – bum, belly and bust – he transformed himself every year into a real over-the-top caricature of a woman and put on very large high heels and he would dance around town laughing and just being incredibly joyous.

“To the Cardiff carnival community, he was a legend and I suppose that’s why we’ve showed up on a slightly overcast October day to celebrate Carnival Keith.”

Catherine Leggett said: “He’s the most amazing performer. I collected a lot of photographs and looking back, he would usually have a fag in one hand, a can in the other with his wig and his make-up, but as soon as carnival started he just transformed. And he would play up. He would pull his skirt up. He was a real performer and he loved the crowd.”

June Campbell-Davies, who had known Keith since 1995, added: “He would come every year to the carnival launch where we would put up pictures of theme for the year. He would then say, ‘What am I going to wear?’

“He’d always have a costume that would be the dame – with big shoes, make-up and hair. We were always happy to have him there.”