On June 20, 1937, the Trinidad Guardian's lead sto­ry was: "Oil­fields strik­ers clash with po­lice"–and for the next month or so that sto­ry came to dom­i­nate the news.By June 23 a British war­ship, HMS Ajax, had ar­rived, but "strike fever" had spread to Port-of-Spain and through­out the colony, and there was a short­age of petrol, as it was then known. Peo­ple had been in­jured in clash­es in Rio Claro, and deputy leader of the Trinidad Labour Par­ty Tim­o­thy Roodal was ap­peal­ing to the strik­ers to keep the peace. The gov­er­nor was giv­en emer­gency pow­ers.The dis­tur­bances deep­ened, and in ear­ly Ju­ly armed British troops raid­ed Fyz­abad at dawn in search of strike leader Tubal Uri­ah Buzz But­ler.Look­ing back three-quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry lat­er, that's the kind of news a mod­ern read­er ex­pects to find. But there are many sur­pris­es in those clut­tered black-and-white broad­sheet pages.

The un­rest in the oil­fields didn't take up the whole front page the day af­ter the strike ac­tion be­gan–in fact, it al­most wasn't the lead sto­ry at all.It com­petes for space with an­oth­er big sto­ry, head­lined: "Tor­pe­does fired at Ger­man war­ship: Hitler flies from coun­try re­treat." Al­ready, storm­clouds were gath­er­ing over Eu­rope, though it would be an­oth­er two years be­fore World War II broke out.Low­er down the page, an­oth­er head­line reads: "Sub-In­spec­tor shot dead." Though nowa­days on­ly Cpl Char­lie King's death is re­mem­bered, Sub-In­sp William Brad­burn was shot dead, and a Cpl Price was in crit­i­cal con­di­tion. Char­lie King's fiery death was brusque­ly re­port­ed in a sto­ry that was sketchy be­cause phone lines be­tween Oropouche and Fyz­abad were said to be out.

Oth­er events had con­tin­ued as sched­uled the pre­vi­ous day, how­ev­er: the Turf Club had a suc­cess­ful race day. There were re­ports on plans to drain the Nar­i­va Swamp and turn it in­to farm­land. The port of Port-of-Spain was to ac­quire a $45,000 crane.

Un­til the sim­mer­ing dis­con­tent in the oil­fields erupt­ed on June 19, Trinidad seemed more peace­ful than much of the world. In May, the pa­per had re­port­ed that the Hin­den­burg air­ship had gone up in flames, killing dozens of peo­ple; what strikes a 21st-cen­tu­ry read­er is the swastikas paint­ed on its sides. Not on­ly in Eu­rope but in the east there were signs of the glob­al con­fla­gra­tion to come, as the Trinidad Guardian told its read­ers: "Japan serves last ul­ti­ma­tum on Chi­na: 'With­draw troops or face war.'"Britain had a tem­po­rary respite and cause for cel­e­bra­tion, how­ev­er, as the scan­dal in­volv­ing Ed­ward VI­II and Mrs Simp­son was fi­nal­ly re­solved. The coro­na­tion of his suc­ces­sor was cel­e­brat­ed in the Trinidad Guardian with the head­line "An Em­pire Crowns its King," and de­tails of what Cap­tain Cipri­ani, then deputy may­or of Port-of-Spain, had worn for the oc­ca­sion. The pa­per's front page al­so tracked the progress of in­tre­pid avi­a­trix Amelia Earhart as she at­tempt­ed to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the globe.

Mean­while, or­di­nary life in T&T went on. Page One of the Trinidad Guardian might still re­port on the out­come of a foot­ball match be­tween Queen's Roy­al Col­lege and St Mary's, or Davis Cup ten­nis. Each week the pa­per ran a page of Chi­nese news and one of In­di­an news, com­piled by "the Yo­gi," in­clud­ing trends in In­di­an pol­i­tics and "items of lo­cal in­ter­est to In­di­ans."Ads urged read­ers to "make a jol­ly par­ty" to see the lat­est Gary Coop­er movie at the Deluxe Cin­e­ma, which had just opened its doors for the first time. Del­i­ca­cies that in­clud­ed tinned roast beef and gravy were of­fered as mod­ern con­ve­niences. In the clas­si­fied pages, read­ers would find, among oth­ers, hous­es in Barataria for sale for $1,200, re­payable at the rate of $8 a month. The new 1937 Willys car was launched–a six-seater, which boast­ed not on­ly safe­ty glass, but the lat­est syn­chro-mesh trans­mis­sion.All these sto­ries–quaint, trag­ic, epoch-mak­ing–that made up the mo­sa­ic of life in Trinidad in 1937 will be re­pub­lished to­mor­row in our spe­cial pub­li­ca­tion to mark Labour Day. Like our huge­ly pop­u­lar In­de­pen­dence spe­cial pub­li­ca­tion, this 32-page broad­sheet keep­sake in­cludes sto­ries and pho­tos from the Trinidad Guardian of the day, repli­cat­ed in their orig­i­nal for­mat. It's free with your T&T Guardian to­mor­row.