Carnival brings people together

By Martin Edwards
BBC News, London

The sounds of the Caribbean dominate the carnival

The revellers filed out of Kensal Green Tube station readying themselves for Europe's biggest street party.

Armed with whistles and cans of drink, they walked down the small slip which leads onto Harrow Road - the main route into the Notting Hill Carnival.

From a distance, the sounds of the Caribbean could be heard via the floats and sound systems playing soca, calypso and reggae.

But for the moment at least, all was relatively quiet, with just a trickle of people heading towards the day's festivities.

This did not stop entrepreneurs from setting up shop early to catch passing trade.

Rice and peas

Outside their homes, local residents set up camp, selling all things Carnival-related. Whistles, Caribbean food and Jamaican flags adorned their front gardens.

Some had even constructed sound systems - despite local notices from Brent Council specifically banning them from doing so.

T-Rex has been selling from his Notting Hill "pit stop" since 1997

Even gastro-pubs, normally serving Continental food popular with the young professional set who have moved into the area of late, were getting in on the act.

Their menus had been transformed and now included grilled marinated chicken, rice and peas and cans of Red Stripe, in an attempt to make a killing from the hundreds of thousands of people who will visit the area.

"I was the one that gave them the idea," said irrepressible local man T-Rex holding a bag of sweets in his hands to tempt trade from outside his house on Harrow Road.

"Before me no-one around here was doing it."

This money-spinner has proved fairly fruitful for T-Rex. In one year, he made £8,000. Not bad for a weekend's work.

He said his location was an ideal "pit stop" for people entering the carnival.

'Tangled up'

As for himself, he had no plans on venturing closer to the action. His carnival days are over.

"I don't need to get all squashed up and tangled up down there," he said.

It brings people together... and we need togetherness Daphne Brown, carnival-goer

"And then you've got the police telling you where you can go and all that - I don't need it man. I'm staying right here."

Not so for the crowds of people who, it appeared, had suddenly appeared from nowhere to transform Harrow Road into a sea of colour and sound, eagerly heading toward Ladbroke Grove - the carnival proper.

A phalanx of stern-looking police officers cut across Ladbroke Grove, but this did not stop one of the rank-and-file breaking into a smile as he posed for a picture with giggling revellers.

A group of young lads dressed up as sailors, a scantily-clad woman posing with smiling firefighters, Japanese tourists being tempted by the rhythms of soca, children barely able to walk trying their utmost to imitate the dancing of passing floats - it was all here.

First carnival

"It brings people together," said retired nurse Daphne Brown. "And we need togetherness."

The 69-year-old was there at the very beginning and went to the very first Notting Hill Carnival back in the 1960s.

Much has changed since then, not least the sheer numbers of people now attending each year.

But she dismissed any talk of moving carnival away from its geographical heartland.

Margaret Ellison moved into the area earlier this year

"I don't think it should move," she said defiantly. "It started here and it should stay here.

"Back in the beginning, nobody even wanted to live in Ladbroke Grove - and now everybody wants a piece of it."

Freelance interior designer Margaret Ellison moved to Ladbroke Grove in March.

From the fifth floor £5,000-a-month rented loft apartment she shares with a colleague, the 27-year-old South African viewed the mass of people swaying to the carnival music below.

"I've never been to the carnival before and I was advised by friends that it's very dangerous," she said.

"But it's actually not that bad at all. Having it on my doorstep it would pretty silly not to go.

"For me, I really enjoy people and seeing the huge amounts of people from different background having a fantastic time together is amazing."