Notting Hill Carnival Europe's largest street festival it's a huge scale cultural juggernaut reflecting Caribbean Perdition shaped by black British culture over a million people from all over the world invade this small corner of West London at the end of the summer for a teeming two-day party on some of the most expensive streets in Britain so where did this event come from who started carnival and when in this film I'm on a mission to find out my name is Wynne Baptist and I have a special interest because I always thought my dad started farming my father was Selwyn Baptiste a steel pan player from Trinidad who came to Britain in 1960 as a kid in the 1970s I remember him running carnival from his front room and it was always my dad who was spokesperson when carnival was on TV and here with the carnival committee's point of view is Selwyn Baptiste no not in here carnival began in the mid sixties an Aurora sort of adventure playground of the Tavistock and Godwin areas as purpose is to bring a little bit of heaven to the desolate streets of North Kensington and to enable the West Indian community to feel at home in a country to which they are historically and spiritually tying arguments over the origin of Carnival have been rumbling in Notting Hill for some time I've heard about a woman called Claudia Jones a political activist and civil rights campaigner who staged indoor carnivals elsewhere in London as early as 1959 then there was Ronnie Laz late' a community worker in Notting Hill who had the vision of bringing people together with the street festival in the mid 1960s and Russell Henderson who said to have led the first procession in the streets with a steel pan hung around his neck so where does my dad fit into all this not only of their rival versions of who started carnival no one can even agree when it started the fire 1565 this has created Carnival and Rob wouldn't be like crabs in a barrel and put each other down it's about time to start working together document his history Ishmael blade Grove is a photographer a researcher a filmmaker and spent a long time looking into the origins of Carnival and collecting the most amazing array of photographs Chinese history and I'm hoping that he'll be able to tell us a little bit about the characters and controversies of this story I've recognised one of the pictures over here you should recognize that man yeah so daddy I mean salving was a very very important player a very common key and instrumental blown in the initiative carnival I mean in fact he took over and the carnival from Ronnie Laszlo he was also sort of training a lot of kids in the area to play steel pan and so he was running he was working out them Warren interneuron Adventure Centre whilst running last of CF shantytown so the sort of key and the youth identify guns in here without instruments so my dad took over carnival from Ronnie let'slet's and they were both involved in playgrounds in the neighbourhood but what about the date there was no event in 1964 nothing happened in 64 ideas no absolutely no documentary evidence whatsoever however Ronnie last litter self says that the carnival first I denied 65 and you have others now a corporator it might be fair to say that prior to the 1966 event which was a larger better organised event there was a precursor event have you got a sense of why history of Carnival has been so controversial if you like and has stirred up such kind of fervent passion amongst people Claudia Johns is one of my heroes without doubt what did the what what she contributed as a so the black political struggles in his country is amazing however she did not start the Notting Hill Carnival but then we have the situation of Ronnie last let a white woman doing what she know about Carnival I mean the reality was that you had these people from Trinidad who were just small-time con of lists from Trinidad they were big players you know they would have turned any law street jump up into a carnival and so that's why people try and push her on elie-san out by saying that well Ronnie staged the event but we were the ones that made it Ronnie Laszlo worked tirelessly to improve social conditions in an area which back then was severely deprived but did she actually create the first carnival Ronnie passed away in 2002 so I've come to see her son Michael as lit to ask him when you're you know mother had a vision of bringing together this yeah community was there any feeling at that point that the Caribbean culture should be at the center of this no no my mother's thing was pretty much who was going to be just here spilling out of the house into the street just like again a party for the lucrative gold you know through the Queen's Jubilee or something you know what year was that 65 the reason you know the reason there is this controversy is that all historians rely on documentary evidence they want something written down somewhere where my mother did this thing it wasn't yeah there was no sense of it being a historic moment there was no sense we've got to write this down we've got to record this they just happen in the old moms man it's just over here yeah the mere fact that it's there must give you some former side yeah only because that one's there telling that one you know it's balanced I mean the other strippers it should be one for your father up here somewhere probably so talking to my closet you really got a sense there was no real plan for making a huge event for that first little fate or fair as was and might Lasley son of Ronnie lass that thinks there might even be space for a blue plaque for my dad somewhere on the wall not far from his mum's blue flag that's my heart a blue plaque on a wall in Notting Hill maybe dad would have liked that and then there's a section in this but pioneers in Great Britain and the beginning of the chapter his sterling betting ku and Russell Russell Henderson and then the next entry is Selwyn batiste his greatest contribution was that he played a major role by the mid sixties by actually teaching the steel pan to deprive children English and Caribbean from the Notting Hill adventure playground area in the process Baptiste literally turned many young lives away from violence and crime to become hard-working upright citizens of Great Britain he was also the first chairman of the Notting Hill Carnival and my dad used to carry this book around and and use it it's a bit of a calling card if you went to see someone official like a doctor or somebody where he needed to prove his credentials he'd often pull this book out and get them to read that that entry and there's something he makes me really feel a little sad about that because I think part of my dad's story is that he felt he didn't have the standing or the recognition that that his work had had deserved the adventure playgrounds were really important in the mid 60s because Notting Hill was a community still scarred by the race riots of 1958 to understand how that relates to the beginning of Carnival I've come to meet Peter Joseph a man who experienced those riots firsthand the Teddy boys were a little bit but they kept away from us in the groove until they warmed up by Oswald Mosley and it spilled over in September the first there was only about 6070 hours let me Harold ago Peter was on the front line in Notting Hill defending against racist attacks back in 58 but what does he know of the start of Carnival my recollection is quite simple 1965 can't remember the month that a friend of mine called me and said am time on the road Russell and Sterling and then pan on the road he just took the kids and all that out for a runs we are in a position where we have human archaeologists right here men like Russell and Sterling who can tell you exactly what was happening and make sure that the actual truth comes from that because they did it nobody else the cry pan on the road meaning that a steel band was on the move on the streets is key that was the moment a street party became a procession Peter is cleared that his fellow Trinidadian pan players Russell Henderson and Sterling bettan COO were crucial characters but what about my dad's involvement in carnival he was an aspiring pseudo intellect whose self delusion and ambitions whatever put him to the front in order for him to to feed is it safe to say that you and my dad didn't really go home well it's not see if you can be sure because I didn't find him a nice man I knew my dad could be difficult but it was hard for me to hear what Peter had to say I've arranged to see my dad's old friend dark as how to see how he reacts to the accusation that my dad used carnival for his own ends what he had a basement flat simple square what are they talking about that is poison he may have been well not to me very harsh and very vicious because he was surrounded by a lot of arsonist and that he was not because I knew him well he was an intellectual who's an artist a spiritual and he was brave and in the mid-70s both my dad and darkus needed to be brave attendance numbers at carnival were pushing a quarter of a million between 1973 and 75 a man called Leslie Palmer was in charge and he recruited more steel bands introduced other live acts and crucially attracted sound systems to the event the Caribbean influence now went beyond Trinidadian tradition but as more people came police numbers rocketed tensions that were simmering between black youth and the police all year-round boiled over at Carnival in 1976 by then darkest and dad were running an event facing widespread calls to close it down and they had to stand firm they had a clear message for the police and the carnival goers along the bonds yesterday and it created a certain amount of nervousness we see to the young blacks if you steel in carnival it's like stealing from the purses of the guests who attended your big brother's wedding but looking back now what's darkest is take on who started carnival so can you put the start of carnival down to one individual or is it a movement thing I mean what individual nothing experience you know the only person who had that historical perspective on it a fellow called Samuel bodies for some reason he knew that this thing is going to explore has a huge cultural statement but it didn't become a huge cultural statement overnight it's time to rewind to where it all started for my dad he's no longer here to tell me about the Notting Hill adventure playground but I do have a recording he made a few years before his death these guys used to fight it up the back of my kids and on the playground they came here upon's taught them it was beneficial it was unified it was all all-embracing and the boys are the better understanding of one another I've managed to track down some of the original members of my dad's band the adventurers and they've agreed to meet me at the playground where it all began for them when they were teenagers in the mid 60's general dismisses completely changed to what I remember of it and think very little now you know compare famous was it here that you guys were introduced to pan back to from hmm yeah so did it go beyond making and teaching pan was it more than that we in the badges too concerning Pharaoh because he was like the lira so when the adventurers first took to the streets in carnival would you be able to put a Torah we were the kids but basically around 66 we would say the only thing is that things Aaron could have in his lifetime he deserved a bit more recognition he did not get the recognition rightfully deserve when the carnival was in proper problem 7 was the one we took the mantle that's when we think move to his house because that's after like a foolish problem with riots the whole thing he couldn't get away from it when he had sleep deprivation because of the fact his house is the office 24 hours a day what I always remember was serving he's on television when you look at him you look like a black leader militant the adventurous steel bands became the metronomes who was still going strong today they practiced all year round for the annual steel band competition panorama found a member of in Corydon is still involved they still use my dad's pan in the band they say it brought them lot last year that luck combined with skill and hard work meant they came second picked the first place but the Real Steel Orchestra a band from Plymouth still it's their best placing in 20 years dad would be pleased seeing the celebrations going on long into the night my dad's bands did remember being there in 1966 but can anyone put them and my dad at the first one one man who should know is sterling bettin coup a legendary steel pan player sterling left Trinidad to come and perform at the festival of Britain way back in 1951 and visiting him feels like I'm getting close to the source 1951 so this is the band you came yeah that's right and only three of us alive now Wow are you in that photograph yeah look me here they said that we must take a band to Britain for the to see the Trinidad culture because this was something new no one knew about the steel drum in those days they'd say well that is black magic I met your dad in the early days when we started that the Notting Hill Carnival in that ad read the playground he was very involved with missus last letter as well and and the kids in in in their 20 playground and and he was there but he didn't actually come on the road with us when when we first started but he he was there this was not a Trinidad West Indian thing it it get like that after what year do you think the first well year would you say that first carnival was in 1964 what was what was my dad like as a man as a guy was a friend of your how do you would you describe him seven buddies was a very passionate person you know and he used to get very upset if people try to do things that that is is not agree with even he was a nice person I must say he was a very nice person am I too old to learn you know can you teach an old dog new tricks yeah you you were to have a go okay then why not yeah dad started teaching me and I was a kid at school and I was too interested in playing football Stirling clearly had fond memories of my dad but according to him it was the band he was in the Russell Henderson trio who took to the streets first my dad's band came later oh good won't find out who started carnival and when I've been looking for definitive answers and all roads have led to this man Russell Henderson musician and pioneering pan artist led the first ever carnival parade on the streets of Notting Hill in 1965 liquid 65 864 Russell Henderson is now 90 but he remembers how that first mobile procession spontaneous unplanned momentous created an immediate buzz as it set off through the streets so there's no intention for this event to move you just came to play this one that's well remember which direction he went in to let's pause it for Chester that way that's less car within a few hundred yards people were come here and falling but we're so impressive that first one not that that following that it caused it to continue and the same way that build up that day because well built a Revere and your father came to me suppose you realize this carnival it's some getting getting big get it ok Honda yeah I think we should have a committee I agree with it Sherman for the first committee call it CDC can't development so according to Russell that's when things got serious my dad's no longer here to give his version of events but sterling Russell and some of the other old steel pan warriors are and they still get together to jam and reminisce about how they and others like them change the face of Britain when was the first carnival well that one will run and run when you ask who started it the answer is that carnival has many authors at the forefront a dynamic white woman working to bring an impoverished community together and a group of pioneering West Indian musicians who answered her call a set of conditions including deprivation immigration and racial tension set the stage hundreds of people have helped develop carnival and millions have dance to its tune over the years I've learnt a lot about my dad and his carnival story and over the August bank holiday I'm sure he'll be here in spirit you participate it's a street theatre you can be anything on that date it's free it's a freedom thing and the carnival is the most dynamic thing that England has ever seen in US history