New Orleans' Mardi Gras parade is known worldwide for the bright colours, cheerful music and flamboyant parades that attract onlookers of all ages.  The carnival flows through the streets, celebrating the city that hosts it. People line the pavements (or should that be sidewalks?) to watch the procession and join in with the fun, but for the younger generation it can be hard to make out what is going on from low down in the crowd. In the 1960s people started bringing ladders for children to sit on so they could watch the parade go by without their view being blocked by taller adults.  These were not ordinary ladders, that you or I might use, but evolved into brightly painted customised ladders that parents decorate for their children, especially to use at Mardi Gras. The ladders are usually wooden and often passed down within families to younger children and even newer generations.  At the top of the (usually) six rungs there is a wooden box seat with straps so the child can be secured in place.  Some bespoke ladders, such as those made by veteran ladder-maker George Brower, can seat up to four kids. Brower is fiercely supportive of the ladders, having set up his ladders for his own family and friends on the same stretch of the parade route that has been in the family for 58 years. The City Council often introduces laws on the placements of the ladders on the pavement, most recently that they must be set up at least six feet from the edge of the road. This is designed so that the kids can still get a good view, but the ground level participants in the parade can also get involved without the wall of ladders getting in the way. Parents and parade regulars don't want to see such a law imposed on the ladders, instead viewing them as an integral part of the day and a Mardi Gras tradition.  Brower would agree: as a man who has made over 100 ladders, all custom built, he is passionate about the community that surrounds the ladders and the experiences of the kids who use them. Seated preferably three feet back from the curb, kids can catch beads and other small presents thrown from the parade floats and they are so high over the heads of their parents that it's almost like their own world. That's the sort of tradition that Brower and his friends want to preserve.  It's only fifty or so years since this tradition started, so there is plenty of life left in it, especially as the first kids to sit in them will be becoming grandparents around now, and they can experience the joy of seeing their first Mardi Gras ladder used by a grandchild. There are town fetes and school fairs all over the UK where a parade of floats passes through the streets: Notting Hill Carnival is a prime example.  Perhaps we can bring this tradition across the pond and while we're at it, let our kids get a better view of the festivities?  For now though, we'll leave George Brower at the head of the ladder supporters and hope he can build better and bigger Mardi Gras ladders for the kids of New Orleans' future.