Notting Hill Carnival 2022

 Notting Hill Carnival 2022

It only seems like yesterday. After an unenforced three- year absence Notting Hill Carnival is back on the streets of West London. Yesterday it was children's day for Carnival as is usually the case. But the glorious spectacle will be back, a street party extravaganza that will always be matchless. Then the sheer harmony and musical communality of the whole weekend will once again bring to London a stunning electricity and vivid vibrancy. London has suddenly exploded into a kaleidoscope of colour, energy and laughter in the capital city. How we've longed for the Notting Hill Carnival. Our patience has been rewarded.

Today the Carnival will come into its own. The streets and roads of Bayswater Road, Bishops Bridge Road, Inverness Terrace, Hollywood Park Avenue, Uxbridge Road and Harrow Road will be bopping, grooving, shaking its hips, boogying and abandoning itself shamelessly to fun and frivolity. It could be quite a day and for those who thought we'd never see its like again, the documentary evidence will be on hand to record another weekend of joy, unabashed happiness and fascinating rhythms.

Of course the people will be there in all of their multi racial and multi- cultural magnificence, predominantly black but then embracing precious diversity and tolerance. The steel drums will be pounding away in superlative fashion, the ghetto blasters at their finest and most mellifluous, the sound systems blasting out into the late August sunshine and life will be sweeter than ever. And then there is the procession  itself. 

It will start in Notting Hill and end in Notting Hill which almost sounds fairly logical but this year Notting Hall Carnival should have an even greater resonance, importance and poignancy. The locals must have thought they'd never be allowed to ever leave their homes for fear of being laid low by Covid 19. But now they have now been given permission because the coronavirus has seemingly vanished although the realists tell us that we'll just have to cope with a rampant disease that must have felt like it would go on forever.

Still, they'll all be there today; the ladies with their spiky feathers the colours of the rainbow, the kids riffing the latest Caribbean themes, the jerk chicken, the outrageously stylish beach shirts, the smoke, the hint of incense hovering in the air and of course a community of people who will suddenly feel remarkably liberated if not relieved. They will walk together rather in the way they have since the late 1950s and then the seminal 1960s where everybody and everything dramatically changed overnight. 

We all know regrettably about the unfortunate events that so disfigured Carnival during the 1960s and 70s since it's branded indelibly on our consciousness. The news agenda throughout was dominated by futile murders, bloodshed, disgraceful violence, gang warfare on an epic scale and hundreds of police desperately trying to pacify the ultra- aggressive hordes determined to ruin the August Bank Holiday.

Now things seemed to have quietened down in West London and there is a genuine sense of frisson and breathless anticipation about the Notting Hill Carnival. For at least a year before Carnival, the preparations were extensive and thorough. The costumes were designed with meticulous attention to detail, sequins and beads, flowers and fripperies almost an integral part of what makes Notting Hill work.

But the days of long running battles with the police towards the final hours of Carnival have now been consigned to history. Notting Hill has had enough of its belligerent troublemakers, the thugs and villains simply intent on stealing, stabbing and soiling the Carnival with their ubiquitous presence. The mindset is now much more positive. The hooligans of the 1970s have left their flick knives and guns well away from Notting Hill and this year is all about incessant celebration, boastful braggadocio and gleefully invisible enjoyment. 

In an age now where racism must be allowed to end as of now and dissenting voices well and truly silenced we can only hope that sanity prevails and the good times can once again roll. Britain is a much more cosmopolitan, free and easy, liberal nation, a nation of welcoming acceptance of all religions, creeds and races. Carnivals transcend both the colour of your skin, and caters to all of your tastes, preferences and lifestyle choices. It doesn't matter who you are and where you come from because everybody should be given the red carpet treatment.

And so Notting Hill Carnival will slowly wind down in much the way it always has done. Smiling policemen and women will be dancing to the hypnotic beat with members of the public who just want to savour the feelgood ambience around the back streets of the neighbourhood. So whatever you're doing on this August Bank Holiday have a brilliant time. Anybody for a rum and Coke.