Carnival Style 2013 - Paddington Arts’ performers go ‘under the sea’

Fine weather held over the bank holiday as an estimated one million people followed the parade and joined in the dancing at Notting Hill Carnival.

 photographs: Paddington Arts Stev

The sun shone as hundreds of thousands of revellers joined Europe’s biggest street festival.

Performers from Paddington Arts joined the parade on Sunday and Monday with a 300-strong team of dancers following their float dressed as jellyfish and octopuses.

Steve Shaw, director of the Harrow Road-based organisation, said: “It was a fantastic day.

 

“We had an under-the-sea theme, with about 200 people on the Sunday, which is children’s day, and about 300 on Monday and some of the older kids joined us on the Monday. It’s great for us we just go to the end of the road, turn left and we’re there, where as most people have a long journey to get here.”

Mr Shaw said hard work and lots of preparation had paid off and it would soon be time to start getting ready for next year’s parade. He added: “Once we finish this one we have some feedback and then by Christmas we start again, making the costumes on site here.”

Police said they carried out a number of raids across London last week, aimed at preventing clashes at the carnival.

 

Overall figures for arrests at Notting Hill were slightly up on last year with 301 people held this year, compared with 278 in 2012.

The majority of arrests were for possession of drugs, with a handful detained for alleged assaults on police officers.

Meanwhile London Ambulance Service reported their busiest ever year with a 50 per cent increase in the number of people treated. A total of 183 patients were taken to hospital this year, compared with
98 in 2012. Medical staff dealt with 449 patients on the Sunday and a further 814 on Monday at treatment centres along the route.

Ambulance operations manager Natasha Wills, who oversaw the LAS response, said: “It was extremely busy for us, but it’s always a great event to work.

 

“Many of our patients were treated for cuts and injuries to their feet because of broken glass on the ground. There were also lots of people who were suffering the effects of too much alcohol.”

Westminster Council said a team of 170 workers cleaned up more than 200 tonnes of rubbish by 3am on Tuesday and they attempted to sift through rubbish to reclaim 100,000 cans and bottles for recycling.

by 
WILLIAM McLENNAN