Thousands turn out for Coventry's annual Caribbean Festival

[dutchman]

Jerk chicken, rice and peas and reggae music were on the menu at Coventry’s War Memorial Park this weekend as the city celebrated its annual Caribbean Festival.



Thousands turned out to this year’s event, which featured an array of family attractions, charity stalls and fair rides and games.

The festival has been going for 23 years, and organiser Clyde McIntosh thinks that it’s all down to Coventry’s unique atmosphere.

He said: “This year’s festival had an absolutely fantastic atmosphere, and there was a multi-cultural audience. Everybody had fun.

“It’s a family-orientated event and it’s really inclusive. People often tell me that they love Coventry’s Caribbean Festival because it just feels so homely and everybody is smiling and enjoying themselves.”

Unfortunately, the exotic vibe was dampened somewhat this year by torrential rains that began in the evening.

Clyde said: “When it started to spit a bit everybody ignored it. It was only when the heavens opened at about 7pm that everybody just ran.

"They ran under the stalls, some ran to the car park, people were under marquees.”

When Clyde arrived at the War Memorial Park on Sunday morning, he found that a large marquee worth £2,500 had mysteriously vanished. Despite scouring the event area, it was only when he took a different route out of the park in his car that he found the marquee lying on the grass beside an exit.

He said: “I can only guess that a group of about 50 people picked the big marquee up where it was left folded up and just walked with it over them to shelter from the rain, and then left it just inside the park!

“I’m so glad we found it.”