‘You just can’t lime inside a crowded hall’

With news that St Paul’s Carnival has been cancelled for this year angering many, Meena Alexander explains how much the event means to the city – and why its replacement just won’t cut it.

‘Liming’ – a Caribbean word that has no British equivalent, but that anyone who has ever been to an event like St Paul’s Carnival will surely have experienced.

To lime is to hang around. To chill out. To see and be seen. To lime is to relax and enjoy the company of others, to line the streets and watch life go by, to eat some good food and tap your foot to a well-known song.

Particularly in the smaller Caribbean islands like Grenada, where much of my family live, hanging out on the side of the road or outside your local rumshop is the standard way to catch up with friends and entertain yourself after a hard day’s work. It’s about being an active and recognised member of the community, sharing your stories and wisdom with your peers and coming together as a unit. 

This social, community-centric ethos is one of the main elements of Caribbean culture that survived the long journey across the Atlantic during the mass migration of the 1950s and 60s, and it can be easily recognised in the events put on by the fledgling multicultural communities that sprung up across Britain at that time.

In the 1968 programme for what is now known as St Paul’s Afrikan Caribbean Carnival, the organisers expressed hope that the event would lead to “better understanding, greater respect and increasing harmony in this community of communities” – and that it did. St. Paul’s Carnival has a long history of promoting cohesion and cultural celebration in Bristol, all centred on what I recognise to be the distinctly West Indian notion of everyone being out in the community together. 

To me, the act of liming is at the very heart of the British Afro-Caribbean carnival, not only because it’s a luxury in modern Britain, but also because for many it’s part of their cultural make up. To put it frankly, Carnival is the one day a year when large groups socialising outdoors in central Bristol become festive rather than threatening, natural rather than suspicious. In a society where such activity is so often described in negative terms, where ‘loitering’ on a street corner or sitting ‘idle’ in a park attracts suspicion and reprimand, amongst its many other positives St Paul’s Carnival provides the community with an opportunity to simply be themselves.

Although I share the feelings of disappointment and even anger that many in Bristol have expressed over the recent cancellation of September’s Carnival, something that grated on me even more was the proposed replacement event, which has been called St Paul’s Afrikan Caribbean Carnival presents: Grass Roots – a Community Showcase. I realise that this may sound ungrateful, and many will no doubt claim that it’s better than nothing, but for me the whole idea of such an event completely clashes with the Carnival culture it seeks to replace.

Having an indoor, ticketed event that will only be available to the few rather than the many couldn’t be further from the vibrant community spirit that has characterised St Paul’s Carnival for so many years, and it’s disheartening that the much-loved festival has been reduced to a shadow of its former self with little explanation. 

Carnival is walking through the streets of St Paul’s in your best outfit, with dancing, sound systems and makeshift Jerk chicken shacks on every corner; not a family fun day at the local community centre. Although there will no doubt be a huge push by St Paul’s Afrikan Caribbean Carnival Ltd to ensure next year’s Carnival goes ahead as planned, there is a tangible feeling of loss for the Bristol institution this year, and frankly the proposed replacement event won’t even come close.

The fact of the matter is this: you just can’t lime inside a crowded hall.

Pictures from Shutterstock