Woolwich Online: Woolwich Carnival Sends Out A Message To NottingHill

by Benson Agoha | Carnival

By afternoon of Saturday, September 19, 2015, the Woolwich Town Centre was the place to be. And General Gordon Square was the concourse for a special occassion - The Woolwich Carnival.

*L-R: Deputy Leader Cllr John Fahy and Member of Parliament for Woolwich,
Matthew Pennycook MP at the Woolwich Canival on Saturday, 19, Sept., 2015

The Colouful dancers in their florescent costumes, were filing past, arms swinging like the many ribbons and chiffon from which their costumes were made, smiles revealing beautiful white sets, drummers doing their thing. In fact, it was as if NottingHill had made an appearance at the Town Centre.

And if the dancers and their colourful costumes were eye-catching, even harder to overlook are the carnival goers and visitors who thronged out in their numbers.

If the Square had not attracted a large crowd for a while, it did on Saturday. And they enjoyed the show and danced to the beats from giant speakers and music by various rappers.

One of the questions being hushed among visitors at the Woolwich Carnival on Saturday was weather it has indeed come to stay. So we went the GLYPT's Tram Shed to find out.

Was the carnival exclusively Caribbean? Staff at the Tramshed said the carnival was a multi-cultural multi-ethnic event reminiscent of the inter-racial feature of the community. And representation was diverse.

It was organised by the Woolwich Carnival Community Committee, made up of a voluntary group of local residents, community groups, art organisations and schools. They joined together to creat a celebration of culture and community,

Is It Expected To Grow? We were told that this was the first time in recent years that a carnival of its nature was taking and, as the staff put it, "there is no reason why the organisers wouldn't wan't it to grow bigger".

Will this grow to the status of the NottingHill and become a major carnival from the South East? "Fingers crossed, it will get to that point, especially as it is likely to grow with successive events".

This year's Carnival had the theme `Feeling Good' - coined to "promote positive health and well-being with all the things that make us feel good."

GLYPT - an acronym for Greenwich and Lewisham Young Peoples Theatre is administered from the Tramshed in Woolwich by a lady known by name of Fiona.

We sought her from the Crowd and told her: "Congratulations Fiona, you have done a great job of bringing this much people together. Should we expect this to rival NottingHill someday"?

Fiona, feeling good and dancing happily to the music, smiled and said modestly "we will see how it goes".