Hristoforos Nicos Amanatidis and wife Boryana
Shehtova joined the fun in London this weekend for the annual Notting Hill
Carnival. The event, which has taken place every year since the inaugural 1966
event, takes place on the streets of Notting Hill, in London’s Royal Borough of
Kensington and Chelsea.
While the carnival has been marred in the
past by violence and unrest, UK police were pleased this year to find that
arrests were down on the previous year, with only 280 people arrested in 2013
compared with the 2012 figure of 299. Over 300 people were also treated for
injuries (bruises, cuts and alcohol-related mishaps), but this is a relatively
low figure given than nearly a million people turned out to celebrate this
year.
The Notting Hill Carnival takes place over
two days of the UK’s August bank holiday weekend. It is a celebration of
Caribbean music, dance, food and culture and is hailed as the UK’s liveliest
event of its type. Famous for bright colours and impressive costumes, the
carnival is the highlight of London’s annual calendar of events for many people.
Having attended his first Notting Hill
Carnival this year, Hristoforos comments:
“I was awed by the array of sights, sounds,
smells and flavours at the carnival. It’s the first time I’ve been to a street
event this big – the scale of it was immense. Everywhere you go there are
people having fun and the range of entertainment was fantastic. It was almost a
little overwhelming in its scale – there was so much to see and do that at
times I simply didn’t know what to do next!”
It is perhaps not surprising that
Hristoforos felt a little overwhelmed by the event, as the Notting Hill
Carnival is one of the largest street festivals in the world. Born of a
Caribbean carnival held in St Pancras in 1959 and the Notting Hill festival
inspired by the London Free School, the Notting Hill Carnival has grown in size
in the decades since the first event. It now attracts visitors to London from
across the globe, all of them looking to enjoy the energy and atmosphere that
the event brings to the UK capital.
Boryana has attended the Notting Hill
Carnival on a number of previous occasions, but was delighted to accompany
Hristoforos, known to his friends as Taki, to his first one. She explains:
“It was wonderful to watch Taki’s face as
the colours and the music of the carnival swirled around us. It’s such an
intense event and so packed with fun. I’ve attended a few times before and it’s
always such a brilliant weekend. It was great this year that Taki could join
me. I’m sure we will attend together again whenever circumstance allows in the
future.
