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History
Claudia Jones - the Mother of Carnival
The origins of the Notting Hill Carnival can be traced back to 1959, when in part at least in response to the Notting Hill riots of the year before a mardi-gras, known as a Caribbean “Fayre” was held in St. Pancras Town Hall.
It was organised by the charismatic Claudia Jones, a Trinidadian emigrée who, having been expelled from her adopted home in the US during McCarthy’s communist witch hunt (but not before two periods of imprisonment) for speaking out on civil rights, was given asylum in the UK, where she became a respected community leader founding Britain’s first black weekly newspaper “The West Indian Gazette”.
The date of the event, a single evening’s entertainment of calypso, January 30, was timed to coincide with Carnival in Trinidad. Presumably it was hot at the time in Trinidad; the joke of holding a Caribbean celebration in the middle of winter in London was evidently not lost on the organisers.
Mainly featuring Trinidadian steel bands, the event was a huge success and continued each year, moving to Seymour Hall the next year and switching between there and the Lyceum, all the time becoming more popular. The fact that the first one was televised by the BBC presumably didn’t hurt.
It wasn’t until 1965 that it first transferred to the streets of Notting Hill. Sadly Claudia herself didn’t live to see the nascent Carnival, having died in December 1964 as the result of tuberculosis, which she’d had since she was a child in Trinidad. Wildly regarded as the Mother of the Carnival, her legacy is reflected in the slogan under which she ran those early celebrations “A people’s art is the genesis of their freedom”.
Rhaune Laslett
The genesis of Carnival as we now know it is down to one Rhaune Laslett, a resident of Notting Hill born of Native American parents in the East End. Remarkably, given the success of the indoor version and the fact that it had been televised, Rhaune was blissfully unaware of its existence.
She had the idea for something along the lines of a British street party, but modified to highlight the ethnic diversity of the area. At that time, in stark contrast to today, Notting Hill was a victim of post war austerity where occupants of the externally beautiful buildings lived in slum conditions. Many of its residents were immigrants from Spain (following the Spanish Civil War), Portugal, Irish, Turkish Cypriot, Asian, Ukrainians, Africans and, of course, Caribbeans.
Rhaune negotiated with the Police to allow the party to go ahead. Estimates range between 500 and 1,000 as to the number of people who turned up that first year’s street festival, with its horses and carts lent by Portobello Market’s stallholders and costumes borrowed from a costume shop that also supplied Madame Tussauds.
Two Carnivals Unite
West Indian Musicians who’d also been involved with Claudia Jones’s carnival played at that first Notting Hill Carnival. Some of them decided to start walking as they were playing and people began to follow behind them, dancing to the calypso they beat out on their steel drums. Thus was born Notting Hill’s first carnival procession. Some reports say that along the way they were joined by hundreds of fascinated onlookers, some of whom followed the bands for the rest of the day and some of whom simply peeled off t continue with their shopping.
The focus of Carnival at that time was far from being West Indian. Indeed, in 1967 Pink Floyd played in a local church hall (All Saints I believe) as part of the celebrations. Rhaune Laslett ran Carnival till its numbers grew to some 10,000 in 1970, at which point she decided that with so many people involved, it belonged more to the community than to any one group.
Life after Rhaune Laslett
Now upwards of 1,000,000 people enjoy Notting Hill Carnival each year in almost complete safety. It’s community cooperation in action and it has to be seen to be believed!
In 1975 a Trinidadian, Leslie Palmer, took over the running of Carnival and injected the more West Indian flavour for which it became known. Carnival has “changed hands” many times since. From the 80’s onwards, while retaining much Caribbean influence, it has continued to evolve as the makeup of the area has changed and by now pretty much any kind of dance music, from samba to calypso to soul to house to reggae (in flavours ranging from Studio One’s rib shaking dub to sound systems playing the more popular end of the reggae spectrum) to ska from the inestimable Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues to New Orleans jazz. If I’ve missed anything out (and I have), it’s because every year new bands and new sound systems arrive and the area covered by Carnival expands.
One thing I haven’t commented on is the occasional trouble that there’s been, notably in 19761. The reason? I don’t find it that interesting in the scheme of things. Carnival is overwhelmingly about unity. At times that’s been something that authority has found difficulty dealing with, but these days (and probably for the last 15 years) even the powers that be have worked out that the best form of crowd control is no control, bar the odd fencing off of streets to all but residents.
And finally ..
I am MORE than happy to be corrected on any aspect of my potted history of Carnival. I realise that it is far from complete and that I have relied on sources that may themselves be occasionally incorrect, not the least if which is my own memory!
1Actually the trouble of 1976 Carnival is interesting in one aspect, it inspired the Clash song “White Riot”.
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