Rhaune Laslett

[clarification needed] Laslett became president of the London Free School, organised by a coalition of local activists, including some emerging underground artists of the area, particularly John "Hoppy" Hopkins.

[2] She became president of the London Free School,[3] organised by a coalition of local activists, including some emerging underground artists of the area, particularly John "Hoppy" Hopkins.

[6] In a series of articles to newspaper correspondents and in The Grove (newsletter of the London Free School),[7] Laslett outlined the aims of the festival – that the various culture groups of Notting Hill become more familiar with each other's customs, to bring more colour and life to the streets and to counter the perception of the area being a run-down slum.

The "Notting Hill Fayre and Pageant", or the London Free School Fair, was held over a week starting on 18 September 1966, and, as well as featuring a pageant that included "a man dressed as Elizabeth I and children as Charles Dickens characters", there was "a Portobello parade consisting of the London Irish girl pipers, a West Indian New Orleans-style marching band, Ginger Johnson's African-Cuban band, and Russell Henderson's Trinidadian steelband from the Coleherne pub in Earl's Court, followed by 2 fire engines".

With more of an English fete in mind, she invited the various ethnic groups of what was then the poor area of Notting Hill - Ukrainians, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, Caribbeans and Africans - to contribute to a week-long event that would culminate with an August bank holiday parade....She borrowed costumes from Madame Tussaud's; a local hairdresser did the hair and make-up for nothing; the gas board and fire brigade had floats; and stallholders in Portobello market donated horses and carts.

[12][13][14] On 26 August 2011, a blue plaque commemorating Laslett's conception of the Notting Hill street festival that "later evolved into Notting Hill Carnival" was unveiled on the corner of Tavistock Square and Portobello Road (organised by the Nubian Jak Community Trust), facing another blue plaque that commemorates Claudia Jones, who in 1959 organised an indoor Caribbean carnival event.