?This year marked the 50th year of car­ni­val in Lon­don. In­flu­enced by Car­ni­val in T&T and de­vel­oped and man­aged by many na­tion­als liv­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom, Not­ting Hill (Au­gust 30-31) has grown in­to�Eu­rope's largest street fes­ti­val and one of the�best Tri­ni-style car­ni­vals in the world.

The gov­er­nance of the event has had to face se­vere chal­lenges. Each year, ques­tions are asked of its or­gan­is­ers and de­mands made on its for­mat and eco foot­print. And each year, it has man­aged to sur­vive all prophe­cies of doom and fail­ure. In 2009, there were added chal­lenges, as the event had to be staged with an in­ter­im board com­pris­ing just three mem­bers, re­duced fund­ing for its core ac­tiv­i­ties and no event man­ag­er. But de­spite these chal­lenges, the fes­ti­val was a re­sound­ing suc­cess. The ma­jor pre-car­ni­val events–Car­ni­val Splash, Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Panora­ma–at­tract­ed in­creased au­di­ences with su­perb per­for­mances that could match the best in T&T. The 2009 Ca­lyp­so Monarch of the UK is Aki­ma Paul, with her lyri­cal ren­di­tion of Pass­port Love. Ebony Steel Band was crowned UK Cham­pi­on of Steel.

On both days of car­ni­val, more than 70 bands, both mas and sam­ba, took to the streets, with the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty pass­ing the judg­ing point by the due time. The high­lights of the two days were the bril­lance of the artis­tic de­signs, from the es­tab­lished Clary Sa­landy of Ma­hogany Arts to the in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es of Vic­to­ria Lenzoi Lee, a young Trinida­di­an stu­dent de­sign­ing for the first time for ELIMU Padding­ton Arts. The Band of the Year Chal­lenge Shield�was award­ed to Ma­hogany Arts, with the Lon­don School of Sam­ba be­ing crowned�the Best Sam­ba Band for 2009. The car­ni­val al­so played host to a num­ber of in­ter­na­tion­al artistes, num­ber­ing among them�for­mer�Road March�cham­pi­on, Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch and In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca�Monarch, Shad­ow; for­mer Road March cham­pi­on,�Pos­er; for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca�Monarch, Iw­er George; 2009 T&T Ju­nior Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Megan Wal­rond�and�DJ Bad Lad from Toron­to. The suc­cess of the 2009 car­ni­val was al­so due to sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions made by many na­tion­als, un­der­lin­ing the im­por­tance of the an­ces­tral and cul­tur­al her­itage of the event to its par­ent in T&T.

T&T-born An­cil Bar­clay con­tin­ued to de­liv­er ser­vices to the air­port in­dus­try, whilst spear­head­ing the op­er­a­tional and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­mands of the car­ni­val. Through his lead­er­ship and his part­ner­ship with an­oth­er Tri­ni, Chris Booth­man, they raised the sta­tus of the event by at­tract­ing a bevy of VIPs, in­clud­ing con­sular rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Caribbean, led by the Act­ing High Com­mis­sion­er for T&T Gail Guy. The VIPs, in­clud­ing a sig­nif­i­cant rep­re­sen­ta­tion from Bar­ba­dos, the High Com­mis­sion­er�Hugh An­tho­ny Arthur, Min­is­ter of Tourism Richard Sealy and Sen­a­tor Pe­ter Gilkes, were suit­ably wa­tered by An­gos­tu­ra UK. Artis­tic ex­cel­lence in mas was judged by a no­table pan­el of T&T artists and aca­d­e­mics, in­clud­ing�Leela Ramdeen, Corinne Skin­ner-Carter, Mervyn Hen­ry, Dr Pat Bel­con and Carl Mor­ris. Speak­ing af­ter the event, An­cil Bar­clay said: "Car­ni­val is an icon­ic event in the fes­ti­val cal­en­dar of the Unit­ed King­dom. On its 50th year, it has shown the world the best of per­for­mance and fes­ti­val arts that the UK has to of­fer and, on this foun­da­tion, I am as­sured that the next 50 years will see phe­nom­e­nal de­vel­op­ments. We ex­tend our hands to all sim­i­lar car­ni­vals to join us in mak­ing this cel­e­bra­tion of mas, move­ment and mas­quer­ade a world event."

?Brief his­to­ry

?The Lon­don Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val Ltd (LNHCL) is the gov­ern­ing body for or­gan­is­ing the an­nu­al Car­ni­val.

�

�2 The LNHCL is gov­erned by a board of di­rec­tors, with an in­ter­im chair Chris Booth­man and di­rec­tors An­cil Bar­clay and Michael Williams

�2 The car­ni­val is held on the UK's Au­gust Bank Hol­i­day with Chil­dren's Day on the Sun­day and Adult Car­ni­val on the Mon­day.

�2 The first Lon­don car­ni­val was held on Jan­u­ary 30, 1959, at St Pan­cras Town Hall and was tele­vised by the BBC.�Or­gan­ised by po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist and founder-ed­i­tor of the West In­di­an Gazette, Clau­dia Jones, it was timed to co­in­cide with Car­ni­val in Trinidad, the Caribbean's largest and most fa­mous, and de­signed to make a de­ter­mined and pos­i­tive state­ment against the Not­ting Hill race ri­ots of 1958.

�2 In 1960, the event moved to Sey­mour Hall in Padding­ton and in 1961 it was held at the Lyceum in The Strand. It al­ter­nat­ed be­tween the two venues, grow­ing in at­ten­dance and im­por­tance with each year, un­til Clau­dia Jones was found dead in 1964.

�2 In ear­ly 1965, an­oth­er amaz­ing woman, who knew noth­ing about the events in north Lon­don, con­tact­ed po­lice about hold­ing a neigh­bour­hood fes­ti­val to help com­bat the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects of pover­ty and de­pri­va­tion in the Ladroke Grove area.�Com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Rhuane in­vit­ed var­i­ous groups in and around Not­ting Hill, in­clud­ing the Lon­don Free School, to par­tic­i­pate in the Not­ting Hill Fair and Pageant street pro­ces­sion on the Au­gust bank hol­i­day. This was the birth of the Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val, un­der Laslett's lead­er­ship, un­til 1970.

�2 The de­vel­op­ment of the event in­to what it is to­day is the work of Leslie Palmer, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as Teacher Palmer, and to car­ni­val­ists as "The Wound­ed Sol­dier." Palmer, with the help of Mer­le Ma­jor and An­tho­ny Per­ry, fash­ioned the car­ni­val that still ex­ists to this day. Palmer vowed to turn car­ni­val in­to "an ur­ban fes­ti­val of black mu­sic in­cor­po­rat­ing all el­e­ments of Trinidad's Car­ni­val."

�2 2009 marks 50 years since the first car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tion in the Lon­don Bor­ough of Cam­den.

?(Lon­don Not­ting Hill

Car­ni­val Ltd)