I spent T&T’s In­de­pen­dence Day do­ing my two-step chip on Ma­hogany Car­ni­val Arts’ truck that me­an­dered its way through crowd­ed streets of Lon­don at Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val (NHC). This year marked NHC’s 60th An­niver­sary. More than two mil­lion men, women and chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ed in this an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion—Eu­rope’s largest cul­tur­al event (30-31 Au­gust).

Matthew Phillip, CEO of NHC Ltd right­ly stat­ed that this year marks “Six decades of a com­mu­ni­ty that turned ex­clu­sion in­to ex­pres­sion, and strug­gle in­to cel­e­bra­tion.” Amidst the mu­sic, singing and danc­ing that took place dur­ing NHC, we must nev­er for­get its ori­gins.

We re­call that as he dis­em­barked from the ship, the SS Win­drush, on June 28, 1948, Lord Kitch­en­er was in­ter­viewed and he sang a song—“Lon­don is the place for me”—writ­ten dur­ing his jour­ney from Trinidad. Like many peo­ple from the Caribbean, he came at the in­vi­ta­tion of the British au­thor­i­ties, to help re­build the coun­try af­ter the 2nd World War. Not­ting Hill had be­come home to many peo­ple from the Caribbean.

Os­wald Mosley’s Union Move­ment and oth­er fas­cist groups were among those who ac­tive­ly pro­mot­ed racist sen­ti­ments, di­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ties, and fill­ing the hearts of mem­bers of the poor white work­ing-class com­mu­ni­ties with neg­a­tive nar­ra­tives and ha­tred for mi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly those from the Caribbean. The Not­ting­ham Race Ri­ots and the Not­ting Hill ri­ots in 1958 have stained Britain’s his­to­ry.

On Jan­u­ary 30, 1959, Trinida­di­an-born hu­man rights ac­tivist Clau­dia Jones or­gan­ised a BBC broad­cast­ed in­door ‘Caribbean Car­ni­val’ at St Pan­cras Town Hall, Not­ting Hill. It brought peo­ple to­geth­er and cel­e­brat­ed Caribbean cul­ture. “She is wide­ly cred­it­ed with plant­i­ng the seeds for Car­ni­val in the UK by do­ing so” (https://nhcar­ni­val.org).

On May 17, 1959, 32-year-old Kel­so Cochrane, An­tiguan born car­pen­ter, and as­pir­ing lawyer, was at­tacked and mur­dered by a group of white youths in Not­ting Hill. Racial ten­sions were high at that time. His mur­der had a huge im­pact on race re­la­tions.

In 1966, so­cial work­er Rhaune Laslett-O-Brien in­tro­duced a week-long Not­ting Hill street fes­ti­val to cel­e­brate the dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al back­grounds of lo­cal res­i­dents. “The first Not­ting Hill car­ni­val was of­fi­cial­ly born” (https://nhcar­ni­val.org).

In 1976 ri­ots oc­curred at NHC when Po­lice and car­ni­val go­ers clashed—against a back­drop of anger sur­round­ing po­lice use of the SUS law. This year, 2026, al­though there were hun­dreds of ar­rests, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice de­scribed the at­mos­phere as “over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive and cel­e­bra­to­ry”, with an­oth­er re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous vi­o­lence at the event.

To­day, NHC re­mains a gift to hu­man­i­ty —J’Ou­vert, mas­quer­aders, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, steel bands, sta­t­ic sound sys­tems play­ing a wide range of mu­sic, in­clud­ing reg­gae, so­ca, ca­lyp­so, sal­sa, and an ar­ray of culi­nary de­lights from around the world.

Panora­ma fi­nals took place on Sat­ur­day. Ebony and Man­grove placed first and sec­ond. Metronomes and Reel Steel tied for third place.

In the midst of the cel­e­bra­tions, we all paused for the an­nu­al Mo­ment of Re­flec­tion: a 72-sec­ond si­lence, held at 3 pm on both days in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 72 per­sons who lost their lives in the fire in the 24-storey Gren­fell Tow­er block of flats in North Kens­ing­ton on June 14, 2017.

For many years, I was a judge on both days at NHC. This year, I joined my broth­er, Anil (Speedy) Ramdeen, and his part­ner, Clary Sa­landy, on their truck. They co-found­ed Ma­hogany Car­ni­val Arts in 1989. Clary is a renowned de­sign­er, and Anil a struc­tur­al en­gi­neer. To­geth­er with their amaz­ing team, which in­cludes my fam­i­ly, they de­vel­op tech­niques of cos­tume de­sign and con­struc­tion. They take Car­ni­val around the world. My great niece, Trin­i­ty, is Lon­don’s main “wire woman”. She has bent wire for most of the oth­er bands. Ma­hogany’s theme for Car­ni­val 2026 was Na­ture’s Dance, The Spir­it Of Sanko­fa.

Clary says: “Sanko­fa is a myth­i­cal bird, a sym­bol from the Akan peo­ple of Ghana ... It’s de­pict­ed with its feet fac­ing for­ward but it’s look­ing back­ward, with an egg in its beak. It means you look back at your past, your her­itage, knowl­edge gained from an­ces­tors, so you can learn from your past and make good de­ci­sions about /build your fu­ture ... It’s ac­tu­al­ly look­ing back to then grow this egg for the fu­ture ... So, un­der­pin­ning all Ma­hogany’s ideas is this link to the ide­ol­o­gy of Pan-Africa and the voice that comes out of that African ex­pe­ri­ence. The mov­ing of African peo­ple, slav­ery etc ... The rea­son why I called it Na­ture’s Dance, is be­cause Africa as a land is rich in re­sources, in­clud­ing its peo­ple. Africa re­sources the world big time.” (See ex­pla­na­tion of the band’s sec­tions @Ma­hogany­Car­ni­val).