Millions flock to celebrate Notting Hill’s multicultural carnival

THOUSANDS of families converged yesterday on Notting Hill for this year’s carnival.

Two million people are expected to flock to the area over the whole weekend.

Today is expected to bring the biggest crowds, as the main parade draws revellers from all over the world.

While the main event will take place today, the children’s parade yesterday brought in thousands of families, steaming food stalls, feathered dancers and Caribbean rhythms befitting the long awaited warm weather, with temperatures reaching 23C.

Police have been deployed in their thousands for this weekend’s carnival.

As with previous years, an intelligence operation began in May targeting offenders from previous carnivals, which has so far resulted in 21 arrests, Chief Inspector Jo Edwards said.

Organisers said this year’s theme, “set all free”, commemorating 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade, has been embraced by carnival goers.

Chairman of the London Notting Hill Carnival Company, Professor Chris Mullard said the event had developed from its Caribbean beginnings as an “olive branch to the white community” into a British icon of multi-culturalism.

He said: “It’s amazing how many people have taken on our theme — freedom, equality, opportunity, liberty.

“The carnival has been an expression of identity but also of belonging, culturally enriching to the rest of British society.

“When I started coming in 1964, the murder of a young black man Kelso Cochrane prompted the beginning of the Notting Hill race riots. But now things have moved from a kind of ‘please accept us’ to ‘we were born here’.”

Prof Mullard said: “This is a cultural and institutional structure that will only extend further in future. Yesterday 10,000 turned up for the Panorama event in Hyde Park.”

Police spokeswoman Chief Inspector Jo Edwards said just three arrests had been made in the carnival area between 9am and 4pm, two for possession of an offensive weapon and one for possession of drugs.

She said: “From a police point of view it’s all going very well, with intelligence targeting people before they get a chance to come here and spoil things.”

Sue Gray, 45, a nursery nurse from Ilkley in Yorkshire, came to stay with her cousin for the weekend.

She said: “I came last year for the first time. It’s fantastic. The music is great.”

Lorry driver Richard Sunapek from South Wales, said: “It reminds me of my home in Thailand. For once the British are so relaxed you can bump into someone and they actually smile.”

Miriam Pimentel, a Brazilian student living in Earls Court, London, said: “It’s a bit different to Carnival in Brazil, but it’s lots of fun.

Professor Mullard said: “There’s a lovely spirit, and the atmosphere of a warm summery day.

“Tomorrow’s atmosphere will be quite different. There are lots of young children here today, tomorrow there will be much more crowds and a real party atmosphere.”