Breakfast with Bristol24/7: LaToyah McAllister-Jones

LaToyah McAllister-Jones is deep in conversation on her phone when I arrive at our designated rendezvous, Cafe Napolita on Mina Road, soon after 9.30am on a recent Monday morning.

She has already dropped one of her children off at school, the other off at nursery and bought herself a mocha.

“This job is even more full-on when you’re trying to balance a two-year-old as well,” says LaToyah, who was only appointed as the new executive director of St Paul’s Carnival in April, having previously been head of operations at Ujima Radio.

Originally from Hackney in east London with a career as a change management consultant specialising in the homeless sector, LaToyah has lived in Bristol since 2015. Friends of hers had a house near the Farm pub and it was while visiting them that she fell in love with St Werburgh’s.

As the new boss of Carnival, one of her main aims is to build it from a one-day party into something that can happen throughout the year – without losing sight of course that the first Saturday of July will always be its primary event.

Before meeting her team at their St Paul’s headquarters later on this morning, it’s time to eat. LaToyah orders the baked salmon and eggs (although without the eggs) and a glass of orange juice, while I choose a full English after cycling here from Hotwells.

Napolita is a regular haunt of LaToyah’s and since moving to St Werburgh’s has become a regular venue for special celebrations for her family. During the course of our breakfast, she greets more than one customer by name as they walk in.

LaToyah with her baked salmon breakfast at Napolita – Illustrated by Anna Higgie

Bristol may be her home now, but LaToyah – who is half-Guyanese and half-Jamaican – tells me that not everybody has accepted an ‘outsider’ as the figurehead of such a well-established cultural event as Carnival.

“I think not being from Bristol means I have to work harder to talk to restore faith, to talk to the community and make sure that I understand all the different factors and dynamics. But on the flip side of that, sometimes there is mission drift because everybody has their idea of what Carnival should be.

“And I think it’s possible to wrap this up and not try to be all things to all people. I’m a great one for collaboration and consultation, and I work hard to make sure that that people feel heard and feel represented.”

She calls Ujima her “segue into the arts” and says that it’s still “kind of a little bit wild” about being in this new job. Her own first experience of Carnival was Notting Hill when she was eight and she remembers what an impact it had on her.

“It was an opportunity for me to be part of something that was other than my Britishness,” LaToyah explains. “I’m first generation here. For most first generation migrants, they kind of struggle that world between being British and not being British.

“Because when you go home, what you go home to is the culture of your parents. That was very much part of my upbringing, the food, the stories that we were told, that connection. But I went to school here and I was British. So there’s always this cross, you straddle both worlds.”

Before her involvement in Carnival started, there was an unruly tangle over who were the true custodians of the event. St Paul’s Carnival was cancelled in 2015 and was not held again until its 50th anniversary event in 2018 after both Bristol City Council and Arts Council England pulled funding to the previous organisers amid allegations of mismanagement.

LaToyah describes the new organisation behind Carnival as “like a platform, a conduit and a facilitator”. Her breakfast mostly sits untouched as she talks ten to the dozen: “Carnival doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the community. And if we provide the picture frame, then they find the picture.

“I know there will be little eight-year-olds who are inspired by the cultural heritage and legacy of it and will grow up in part of that, being part of the procession etc. Yeah, I didn’t do any of that. But I wish I had been part of it because the experience was so profound.”

During her brief tenure, LaToyah has already held Carnival-related events at Bristol Old Vic and Colston Hall. “I think everybody wants to see its success and for it to have a legacy,” she explains, heading out of Napolita to walk the short distance to Carnival HQ in St Paul’s.

Napolita, 83 Mina Road, St Werburgh’s, BS2 9XW
0117 312 1730
www.napolitapizza.co.uk

Baked salmon & eggs £9.50
Full English £9.50
Fresh orange juice £3.45
Macchiato £2.10

Total £24.55

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