Notting Hill Carnival

As I was in London on the August bank holiday weekend, I decided to go to Notting Hill Carnival.

My friend and I were going to a party out of town on the Monday, when heavy rain was forecast anyway, so we decided we’d go to carnival on the Sunday, billed as ‘family day’.

I’m glad I went, but it wasn’t quite the all-singing-all-dancing extravaganza I was expecting and although you could tell a lot of effort had gone into some costumes what I saw didn’t really match the images you see splashed across the media.

Sunday is the children’s parade and I hear the costumes are far grander and more extravagant on the Monday, which is the day of the main carnival parade and grand finale. But this is one student’s vivid depiction of the downsides, and based on the taster I had the day before I can imagine much of what she says is true.

First, let’s talk about the good.

/ ♥ this guy ↑ /

I liked the unmistakable sense of being at such an event, a must-see, something world famous, Europe’s biggest street festival.

The pounding beats as the lorries passed made my body vibrate and I couldn’t help but dance on the pavement. The sound systems dotted around the carnival zone were all much of a muchness to me (and, at the risk of sounding old, uncomfortably loud) but if you ever get chance to listen to Gaz’s Rockin Blues, do. This blues and rock ‘n’ roll band was brilliant.

‘Anything goes’ at carnival and a huge number of people of all ages and backgrounds were taking part.

Residents opened their homes as makeshift restaurants, cocktail bars and public toilets.

Smoke billowed from street stalls and the jerk chicken smelled and tasted great.

But then, there were things I disliked.

It was heaving, and I mean dangerously, crushingly so at times. We arrived there at about 2pm and left around 6pm. Despite the carnival being brought to an end at 7pm, it was markedly more busy by the time we left and party-going people were still piling in armed with carrier bags of booze.

Although it was supposed to be the family friendly day I wouldn’t have liked to take kids. I got talking to a woman on the train home who goes with her family every year and she said her children love it but they make sure they’re away by mid-afternoon.

The queues for the toilets were immense and made me glad I wasn’t necking Red Stripe like it was the last day drinking was allowed on earth, as many were.

While the carnage of carnival can’t disguise Notting Hill’s good-looking façades completely, the view at ground level isn’t the pastel-hued prettiness you might expect in this part of West London: many shops and houses (understandably) get boarded up for the weekend, and rubbish is piled up at the side of the road because of the lack of bins.

It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the day, I really did. If you want to experience something that will make you feel alive, this will do it. I suppose it’s unrealistic to expect everything to pass perfectly with a million people descending on W11 and its surrounds.

But I saw less flamboyant beauty and more ugliness than I was expecting. It’s one event crossed off the bucket list, and I’m sort of relieved I don’t have to go again.

Have you been to Notting Hill Carnival or perhaps Leeds West Indian Carnival? What did you think?