I guess my interest in the Notting Hill Carnival needs some explanation! My first experience of the carnival dates back to the mid 1980s.
We always welcomed our children’s friends into our home and at that time Heather had many friends who were West Indian. Yvonne decided that we should therefore start to understand the culture so we went to the Notting Hill Carnival – Yvonne, Richard (then about 123) and me. Yes, it was Yvonne’s idea – honest!
On arrival I made the point that if we got lost, we should meet back at Notting Hill Station at 6pm. Within a few minutes I lost Yvonne and Richard! Yvonne went to the lost children enclosure but was told by a kindly policeman that they did not deal in lost husbands. We met up at 6pm. I remember very little of the day except that it was hot and there were lots of people. No mobiles in those days! How did we cope, I ask myself?
The next text comes from my book 'Just an Essex Lad' – now sadly out of print:
Robert and Luke were on board a float with Robert’s sound system on
Children’s Day at the Notting Hill Carnival in 2002. Heather, Marlon and I moved slowly with the crowd from Notting Hill station, reaching a point from where we could see the procession over the head of thousands, but where Marlon was faced with a sea of legs. The crowd was good-natured and in carnival mood. When Marlon asked if he might have a whistle it was the only time throughout the day when he requested anything. He was content to enjoy, blow and observe. Wending our way with the crowd – which is the only thing to do – we found ourselves at the southern end of Ladbroke Grove on an incline which swept down before us to the main procession route. We were, perhaps, a hundred yards or metres from where the procession turned into Ladbroke Grove from Arundel Gardens – the space between us and the procession being filled by the minute by more and more revelers.
It was now mid-afternoon and Heather rang Rob on his mobile. I will come to find you, said Rob. And Heather and I smiled at his optimism. Many calls later, Heather began to believe that he might succeed. There was a gap in the procession and Ladbroke Grove stretched before us to the railway bridge in the far distance.
“I am walking down the route towards you,” said Robert – and he was
doing just that, a lone figure on the now empty procession route.
We waved and he waved. Below us on the edge of the massed crowd and adjacent to the route of the parade was an area bounded by crash barriers in which some forty police officers were standing. We watched as Robert approached.
Seeking out a young Woman Police Officer, we spotted Robert engaging her in conversation. Even from where we were standing, we could see that the WPC straightened up at what Rob was telling her.
“Stay where you are,” said Rob on the mobile, “the WPC is coming to get you.”
Transfixed, we watched as the WPC approached us, moving deftly and meaningfully, and signaling for us to join her at the barrier – which we did. Moving the barrier aside, the WPC ushered us with some deference towards the corner of Arundel Gardens and onto the pavement of that place. Here we were in splendid isolation with a perfect and uninterrupted view. Rob was on the other side of the barrier, grinning from ear to ear. Lorry after lorry went past, with children and their adult minders dancing and cavorting. Steel bands were a relief from the rib-shattering sound systems. As a couple of hours went by more revelers joined us from the distance – but not through the way we had come.
Later, I ventured to ask Heather what Rob had said to the WPC that made her lurch our way.
“He told her that you are a judge," said Heather.
Now it needs to be understood that, in spite of my efforts to persuade him otherwise, Robert has always referred to me as “the judge” rather than a magistrate. What remains uncertain is how the WPC interpreted Rob’s comment that I am a judge. Did she assume that I was a high-ranking member of the criminal justice system? If so, she must have assumed that off duty judges wear floral shirts and trainers on these occasions. Or did she think I might have been a judge of them carnival? We shall never know.
End of quote from book!
In 2007 and again for some five years I attended the Carnival on the back of the Lagniappe Float on which Rob’s sound system played away. I never saw any problems apart from once when a gang of youngsters ran through the crowds rather fast!
But then I had pneumonia, the next year I stay home to nurse Yvonne, and last year was Annily’s 21st birthday bash at which I just had to be present and would not have missed it for anything.
But this year I am back! On the float taking photographs. Yippee!
I will post some here next week! Meantime, have a good bank holiday!
