It’s the Thursday evening before bank holiday weekend when the ritual begins: houses are boarded up, neighbours compare tactics and plywood reappears in familiar places.
“What can you do?” they sigh. “We’re lucky to live here,” they smile. A few doors down, boards with last year’s graffiti re-emerge, layered with posters promoting mixtapes.
On my way home from work I bump into Helch, the graffiti artist, painting an older couple’s fence boarding. Instead of his signature he has written their names in his trademark font. I find myself unexpectedly starstruck, and feeling faintly guilty about the suitcase waiting for me at home. I know I will be gone by the morning.
Notting Hill Carnival is romanticised by many who do not live here. Transplants from Clapham or Colindale rave about its energy and call it the best weekend of the summer. Residents celebrate too, but many long-standing locals are exhausted by the routine of protecting their homes before the weekend begins. Shops shut, the Tube stations in the area close after certain hours, and you can forget about finding a functioning Lime bike. The reality is that you either stock up and prepare to stay put, or you leave. A lock-in can be fun, but four days of navigating crowds, litter, urine and Nos canisters is not.
I enjoy fun. I love London, and I like watching people enjoy themselves. But my last two Carnivals have felt more like an endurance test.
Last year I made the mistake of returning from a weekend away on Sunday evening. After being forced to alight at White City because the Hammersmith and City line was skipping my local stops, it took two hours to travel home from what should have been a ten-minute journey. Wembley after a big gig feels chaotic, but this was on another level. Why is it still impossible to prepare properly for an event that happens every year?
Then there is the aftermath. The smell of urine lingers for days. Trays of half-eaten food rot on street corners. Flags cling limply to lampposts while the pavements are sticky underfoot.
The truth is that Carnival has no real infrastructure beyond the bin men who arrive each night to clear the wreckage. Policing is patchy, roads are cut off to force partygoers into one-way systems and residents charge revellers a tenner to use their toilets. It’s the biggest Afro-Caribbean event in Europe, and yet the sheer scale of it is left to chance every year.
Perhaps it is no bad thing that some of us leave Ladbroke Grove for the weekend. Carnival goers can dance, drink and enjoy the festival without feeling that neighbours are twitching behind curtains in disapproval. Residents, meanwhile, can avoid the claustrophobia and the endless stream of strangers relieving themselves against their front steps. Nobody wins entirely, but at least everybody gets a little peace.
I chose this area for its vibrancy. It is not suburban beige, it has edge and excitement, and that excitement inevitably floods through my walls each August. I love walking to the market, sampling new ingredients and hearing the stories behind them.
Noise doesn’t worry me; I am very used to sirens and helicopters hovering above Wormwood Scrubs. What troubles me is the lack of planning, the indifference from local government and the knowledge that residents will shoulder the burden again. This year I am packing a bag, closing my windows, and disappearing. Not out of malice, but for survival.
Carnival deserves to be carefree, but the onus isn’t on revellers and residents. This is a festival, and it needs to be run like any other festival. Our local council needs to get it together and formulate a real infrastructure plan to ensure Carnival can continue for decades to come.
Saskia Kemsley is a Shopping Writer at The Standard
