Notting Hill plans digital celebration
PARTY Performers in 2019
THE street party is over for this year’s Notting Hill Carnival due to Covid-19.
But for the first time in 54 years, the festival of Caribbean food, music and dance is going online.
Performances – filmed over the course of a month – will now be shared digitally over the August bank holiday weekend.
Carnival boss Matthew Phillip said the three-day event, which usually attracts huge crowds in West London, celebrates the UK’s multiculturalism.
But he added: “We have a responsibility to protect the black community and our elders by respecting social distancing and taking carnival away from the streets for this year.”
For further details about the online programme, visit nhcarnival.org.
Emergency services at the scene
A RETIRED RAF pilot crashed his replica Second World War plane in a field – after mistaking tractor tracks for a runway.
Barry Conway, 80, cracked vertebrae in his neck and back after his half-scale FockeWulf aircraft flipped on landing.
He was cut out of the wreckage by firefighters and taken to hospital, where he was said to be in good spirits.
Pal Dudley Pattison, 76, said: “He can’t understand how he made the mistake.
“He’s a very experienced pilot. The sun was in his eyes, probably.”
Barry flew Phantoms in the RAF before working for a commercial airline. In 2000, he and Dudley teamed up to win the Schneider Trophy air race for propeller-driven planes.
He crashed his self-built replica as he made for an airstrip near his home in Carterton, Oxfordshire, on Sunday.