Pe­ter Ray Blood

Fifty years lat­er and it's a task to try and re­mem­ber what I was do­ing half a cen­tu­ry ago, on Au­gust 31, 1962, at the age of ten. Even more vivid than my mem­o­ry of the rais­ing of the na­tion­al flag in front of the Red House in Port-of-Spain is my rec­ol­lec­tion of the dec­o­ra­tions in the na­tion's cap­i­tal to ob­serve this his­toric event. I par­tic­u­lar­ly re­mem­ber Fred­er­ick Street, fes­tooned with flags and ban­ners, but more im­pres­sive­ly with mod­els of our na­tion­al birds, larg­er than life and hov­er­ing over the street. I re­mem­ber how ex­cit­ed I was that en­tire week lead­ing up to In­de­pen­dence Day as teach­ers at my pri­ma­ry school (Moul­ton Hall Methodist, on Aber­crom­by Street), kept us busy with art projects, while we learned the na­tion­al an­them, na­tion­al song, the mot­to and watch­words, lis­ten­ing on the Red­if­fu­sion box at the Aber­crom­by Street school. We were al­so taught the mean­ing of the Coat of Arms, the na­tion­al birds, and the colours of the na­tion­al flag. If mem­o­ry serves me right, I think we were al­so giv­en choco­lates, wrapped in gold pa­per, em­bla­zoned with im­ages of the Scar­let Ibis and Cocrico.

Ex­cite­ment rose to fever pitch as my fa­ther's moth­er, the late Jose­fe­ta La For­tune-Blood, vol­un­teered to take my sis­ters and me to Wood­ford Square, to wit­ness the Union Jack be­ing low­ered for the fi­nal time, and see our na­tion­al flag raised in front of the Red House. The mode of trans­porta­tion in­to Port-of-Spain, the train from our home in Pe­tit Bourg, San Juan, was yet an­oth­er fil­ip to the ex­cite­ment and ex­pec­ta­tion. I al­so re­mem­ber ex­it­ing the train sta­tion on South Quay and, greet­ed by a gai­ly dec­o­rat­ed light­house at the bot­tom of Broad­way, look­ing up an il­lu­mi­nat­ed Fred­er­ick Street that seemed to be lit­er­al­ly alive, ef­fi­gies of the Scar­let Ibis and Cocrico seem­ing­ly flut­ter­ing in mid air, as well as fruit and flo­ral fig­urines, all the way up to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. To a ten-year-old, it all seemed to be mag­ic, a night nev­er to be for­got­ten. And so, here we are, half a cen­tu­ry lat­er, and mar­vel­ling over what a jour­ney it has been: three states of emer­gency; a Black Pow­er up­ris­ing; one at­tempt­ed coup; two Olympic Gold medal­lists; one World Cup fi­nal; two Miss Uni­verse win­ners; one Miss World; No­bel Prize win­ners; and, a world crick­et record-hold­er (Bri­an Lara).

In 50 years, we have al­so as­pired and achieved much, par­tic­u­lar­ly in en­er­gy, com­merce, ed­u­ca­tion, so­cial ameni­ties, sport and cul­ture. Un­like so many oth­er sup­pos­ed­ly more de­vel­oped na­tions, we've al­so en­joyed sus­tained racial har­mo­ny in this mul­ti-plur­al state. Re­li­gious tol­er­ance is al­so alive and well in T&T and every ma­jor re­li­gion en­joys its day in the sun with pub­lic hol­i­days on which every creed par­tic­i­pates. Mind­ful of one of our na­tion­al watch­words-tol­er­ance-all eth­nic­i­ties co­ex­ist har­mo­nious­ly, in spite of the ef­forts of politi­cians and po­lit­i­cal par­ties to di­vide and rule. Per­haps be­cause we staunch­ly be­lieve in our "bound­less faith in our des­tiny," pledg­ing our lives to God, the much bandied cre­do that "God is a Trin­bag­on­ian" is wide­ly tout­ed through the years. Sit­u­at­ed just south of the very ac­tive cor­ri­dor of hur­ri­cane ac­tiv­i­ty, and al­so not far away from seis­mic ac­tiv­i­ty, our na­tion has been spared any se­vere nat­ur­al dis­as­ter dur­ing its 50-year ex­is­tence. We are blessed with per­fect weath­er, al­most year­ly. Said to be the on­ly is­land named af­ter God, Trinidad, and its sis­ter isle To­ba­go, are blessed. As our na­tion cel­e­brates its gold­en ju­bilee to­day, we look for­ward with con­fi­dence to the next 50, and may God bless our na­tion.

A week­end to savour

The week­end past was one of those on which I re­quired a clone of my­self. Among the sev­er­al things to at­tend were the mil­i­tary tat­too at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um; CAL?In­vaders cruise; Ari­maFest; NCIC's song con­tests at the Di­vali Na­gar site; the bp Tas­sa com­pe­ti­tion; Rum­land at Jean Pierre Com­plex; City Sun­val­ley pan blocko on Nel­son Street; Lord Bryn­ner In­de­pen­dence ca­lyp­so monarch fi­nal; Show­time mas band launch; the Na­tion­al Song Fes­ti­val Show­case at Na­pa; Pan on D Av­enue; and, Twen­ty20 for 50 crick­et tour­na­ment in the oval. Try as I may, I was un­able to split up my­self, so I opt­ed for the lat­ter two and at­tend­ed the crick­et and Pan on D Av­enue. The Twen­ty20 for 50 crick­et tour­na­ment was sheer fun and it proved to me just how much Bri­an Charles Lara is loved by his com­pa­tri­ots. I met peo­ple in the Oval from as far as Princes Town and Debe, many from neigh­bour­ing Caribbean is­lands, like Kim from Ja­maica, who came just to see the Prince of Port-of-Spain bat once more. Lara didn't dis­ap­point and it was al­so a joy to see South African crick­eters like Justin Kemp and Her­shelle Gibbs; Ba­jans Dwayne Smith, Pe­dro Collins and Fi­del Ed­wards; Ja­maicans Niki­ta Mik­ller and Kr­ish­mar San­tok­ie; and, Guyanese Asad Fu­dadin. For­mer T&T and Man­ches­ter Unit­ed foot­baller Dwight Yorke al­so donned the Lara XI?ma­roons and held his end well, in­clud­ing his short stint be­hind the stumps on Sun­day.

At­trac­tions were aplen­ty at the Oval, in­clu­sive of Olympic gold medal­ist Keshorn Wal­cott bowl­ing to Lara, and do­ing a fair­ly de­cent job of it; and, the live en­ter­tain­ment on the three days, fea­tur­ing the likes of Rik­ki Jai, Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine, Bun­ji and Faye Ann, Shal Mar­shall, Su­pa Jig­ga TC, Uni­ty Tas­sa and Son­ny Bling. Sat­ur­day night's Pan on D Av­enue was a blast fea­tur­ing many of the na­tion's top steel­bands and cos­tumed mas­quer­aders. Among the bands mak­ing the trek along Ari­api­ta Av­enue were PCS?Sil­ver Stars, Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Petrotrin Phase II?Pan Groove, bp Rene­gades, CAL?In­vaders, Star­lift, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists, Hum­ming Bird Pan Groove, Har­vard Harps, St James Tripo­lians, Wood­brook Mod­er­naires, Tokyo, and Trinidad Pan Con­nois­seurs. The pa­rade al­so in­clud­ed the first King and Queen of Car­ni­val Col­in Edghill and Kay Christo­pher, crowned in 1963, the first year of T&T's?na­tion­hood. The event was staged by the Wood­brook Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion and Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, with as­sis­tance from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), min­istries of Arts &?Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion; NL­CB; Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC); Carib and Blink/bmo­bile. Among the vi­gnettes on the night were the play­ing of Panora­ma 2012 tune Aun­tie Pat by Phase II Pan Groove at the cor­ner of Al­fre­do Street, in mem­o­ry of the late Pat Bish­op; and, Wit­co Des­per­a­does ren­der­ing a Panora­ma fi­nal per­for­mance of Clive Bradley's arrange­ment of Re­bec­ca, for the late Allyson Hen­nessy, in front of Veni Mange.

High­er up the Av­enue, in front the Adam Smith Square re­view stand, Des­per­a­does reprised Re­bec­ca for dig­ni­taries seat­ed there­in, and played the im­mor­tal Love is a Many Splen­doured Thing.

A stand­out per­for­mance on Sat­ur­day came from Rene­gades, per­form­ing a Kitch­en­er med­ley of his, com­pris­ing of My Pussin, Fever and Rain­o­ra­ma, and Lord Nel­son's One Fam­i­ly.

Or­gan­is­ers, who have al­ready be­gun brain­storm­ing a re­peat come 2013, must iron out a few kinks in what can be a spec­tac­u­lar road show. For in­stance, the pa­rade needs bet­ter co-or­di­na­tion for the flow of steel­bands, and res­i­dent Wood­brook pubs and bars must be con­vinced to turn off the loud mu­sic they play while steel­bands per­formed, dis­play­ing ut­ter dis­re­spect for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Lengthy gaps be­tween bands al­so caused the pa­rade to run over its sched­uled com­ple­tion time, caus­ing the po­lice to in­ter­vene and stop Phase II from com­plet­ing its per­for­mance. In the pa­rade, sched­uled to end at mid­night, Phase II?was on­ly able to reach as far as Fitt Street cor­ner at 2 am, when po­lice of­fi­cers stopped the band from play­ing.

Pan and food ga­lore in Wood­brook

Af­ter this morn­ing's 50th An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence mil­i­tary pa­rade, Wood­brook and its en­vi­rons will be pul­sat­ing to the sounds of the na­tion­al in­stru­ments in a num­ber of pa­n­yards, in­clud­ing Star­lift, CAL?In­vaders, Carib Wood­brook Plaboyz and Wood­brook Mod­er­naires. Al­so join­ing in the fun is The Har­vard Club as it hosts its an­nu­al In­de­pen­dence Day Lime &?Brunch, from 10 am, com­plete with break­fast and cre­ole lunch. To be held at the club­house, this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­unite the Har­vard fam­i­ly and re­ju­ve­nate our na­tion's spir­it as we ob­serve our Gold­en Ju­bilee and re­flect on our na­tion's jour­ney in the com­pa­ny of good friends and fam­i­ly. Ad­mis­sion is free and there'll be live en­ter­tain­ment by KV Charles, Doppy and Friends and St James Tripo­lians. From 10 am, the day's menu goes on sale, with break­fast in­clud­ing tea plates (co­conut bake & salt­fish, fry bake and salt fish). The re­al clinch­er though comes af­ter­wards in the form of lunch with the menu in­clud­ing ochro & rice with pig­tail & tossed sal­ad; chick­en pelau & tossed sal­ad; or, veg­etable rice with grilled chick­en & tossed sal­ad.

Re­mem­ber­ing a great ca­lyp­son­ian

As we cel­e­brate the na­tion's 50th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, I am spar­ing a thought for the late Ce­cil Hume, known in ca­lyp­so cir­cles as Mae­stro. To­day is 35 years since the pro­lif­ic com­pos­er/ca­lyp­son­ian met his demise on Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way. Stop­ping on the road­way, a short dis­tance from the home he shared with girl­friend, Glo­ria, Mae­stro stopped to as­sist a fel­low dri­ver (Dalip Singh), when a car dri­ven by a sailor struck him, killing him on the spot. Mae­stro's mu­sic is still pop­u­lar to­day and ca­lyp­so lovers fond­ly re­mem­ber many of his hits, in­clud­ing Bion­ic, Gold, Sav­age, Yuh Fool­ing, Fiery, Boom Bam, and Mr Trinida­di­an. The Car­ni­val pre­ced­ing Mae­stro's death he placed third in the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nal, be­hind Mighty Chalk­dust and To­ba­go Cru­soe, re­spec­tive­ly. On a hap­pi­er note, to­day is very spe­cial to Cro Cro (We­st­on Rawl­ins), the 25th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary Ca­lyp­so Monarch. To­day the Mighty Midget cel­e­brates his 60th birth­day.

A week­end to savour

The week­end past was one of those on which I re­quired a clone of my­self. Among the sev­er­al things to at­tend were the mil­i­tary tat­too at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um; CAL?In­vaders cruise; Ari­maFest; NCIC's song con­tests at the Di­vali Na­gar site; the bp Tas­sa com­pe­ti­tion; Rum­land at Jean Pierre Com­plex; City Sun­val­ley pan blocko on Nel­son Street; Lord Bryn­ner In­de­pen­dence ca­lyp­so monarch fi­nal; Show­time mas band launch; the Na­tion­al Song Fes­ti­val Show­case at Na­pa; Pan on D Av­enue; and, Twen­ty20 for 50 crick­et tour­na­ment in the oval. Try as I may, I was un­able to split up my­self, so I opt­ed for the lat­ter two and at­tend­ed the crick­et and Pan on D Av­enue.

The Twen­ty20 for 50 crick­et tour­na­ment was sheer fun and it proved to me just how much Bri­an Charles Lara is loved by his com­pa­tri­ots. I met peo­ple in the Oval from as far as Princes Town and Debe, many from neigh­bour­ing Caribbean is­lands, like Kim from Ja­maica, who came just to see the Prince of Port-of-Spain bat once more.

Lara didn't dis­ap­point and it was al­so a joy to see South African crick­eters like Justin Kemp and Her­shelle Gibbs; Ba­jans Dwayne Smith, Pe­dro Collins and Fi­del Ed­wards; Ja­maicans Niki­ta Mik­ller and Kr­ish­mar San­tok­ie; and, Guyanese Asad Fu­dadin. For­mer T&T and Man­ches­ter Unit­ed foot­baller Dwight Yorke al­so donned the Lara XI?ma­roons and held his end well, in­clud­ing his short stint be­hind the stumps on Sun­day.

At­trac­tions were aplen­ty at the Oval, in­clu­sive of Olympic gold medal­ist Keshorn Wal­cott bowl­ing to Lara, and do­ing a fair­ly de­cent job of it; and, the live en­ter­tain­ment on the three days, fea­tur­ing the likes of Rik­ki Jai, Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine, Bun­ji and Faye Ann, Shal Mar­shall, Su­pa Jig­ga TC, Uni­ty Tas­sa and Son­ny Bling. Sat­ur­day night's Pan on D Av­enue was a blast fea­tur­ing many of the na­tion's top steel­bands and cos­tumed mas­quer­aders. Among the bands mak­ing the trek along Ari­api­ta Av­enue were PCS?Sil­ver Stars, Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Petrotrin Phase II?Pan Groove, bp Rene­gades, CAL?In­vaders, Star­lift, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists, Hum­ming Bird Pan Groove, Har­vard Harps, St James Tripo­lians, Wood­brook Mod­er­naires, Tokyo, and Trinidad Pan Con­nois­seurs. The pa­rade al­so in­clud­ed the first King and Queen of Car­ni­val Col­in Edghill and Kay Christo­pher, crowned in 1963, the first year of T&T's?na­tion­hood. The event was staged by the Wood­brook Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion and Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, with as­sis­tance from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), min­istries of Arts &?Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion; NL­CB; Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC); Carib and Blink/bmo­bile. Among the vi­gnettes on the night were the play­ing of Panora­ma 2012 tune Aun­tie Pat by Phase II Pan Groove at the cor­ner of Al­fre­do Street, in mem­o­ry of the late Pat Bish­op; and, Wit­co Des­per­a­does ren­der­ing a Panora­ma fi­nal per­for­mance of Clive Bradley's arrange­ment of Re­bec­ca, for the late Allyson Hen­nessy, in front of Veni Mange.

High­er up the Av­enue, in front the Adam Smith Square re­view stand, Des­per­a­does reprised Re­bec­ca for dig­ni­taries seat­ed there­in, and played the im­mor­tal Love is a Many Splen­doured Thing. A stand­out per­for­mance on Sat­ur­day came from Rene­gades, per­form­ing a Kitch­en­er med­ley of his, com­pris­ing of My Pussin, Fever and Rain­o­ra­ma, and Lord Nel­son's One Fam­i­ly. Or­gan­is­ers, who have al­ready be­gun brain­storm­ing a re­peat come 2013, must iron out a few kinks in what can be a spec­tac­u­lar road show. For in­stance, the pa­rade needs bet­ter co-or­di­na­tion for the flow of steel­bands, and res­i­dent Wood­brook pubs and bars must be con­vinced to turn off the loud mu­sic they play while steel­bands per­formed, dis­play­ing ut­ter dis­re­spect for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Lengthy gaps be­tween bands al­so caused the pa­rade to run over its sched­uled com­ple­tion time, caus­ing the po­lice to in­ter­vene and stop Phase II from com­plet­ing its per­for­mance. In the pa­rade, sched­uled to end at mid­night, Phase II?was on­ly able to reach as far as Fitt Street cor­ner at 2 am, when po­lice of­fi­cers stopped the band from play­ing.

Re­mem­ber­ing a great ca­lyp­son­ian

As we cel­e­brate the na­tion's 50th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, I am spar­ing a thought for the late Ce­cil Hume, known in ca­lyp­so cir­cles as Mae­stro. To­day is 35 years since the pro­lif­ic com­pos­er/ca­lyp­son­ian met his demise on Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way. Stop­ping on the road­way, a short dis­tance from the home he shared with girl­friend, Glo­ria, Mae­stro stopped to as­sist a fel­low dri­ver (Dalip Singh), when a car dri­ven by a sailor struck him, killing him on the spot. Mae­stro's mu­sic is still pop­u­lar to­day and ca­lyp­so lovers fond­ly re­mem­ber many of his hits, in­clud­ing Bion­ic, Gold, Sav­age, Yuh Fool­ing, Fiery, Boom Bam, and Mr Trinida­di­an. The Car­ni­val pre­ced­ing Mae­stro's death he placed third in the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nal, be­hind Mighty Chalk­dust and To­ba­go Cru­soe, re­spec­tive­ly. On a hap­pi­er note, to­day is very spe­cial to Cro Cro (We­st­on Rawl­ins), the 25th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary Ca­lyp­so Monarch. To­day the Mighty Midget cel­e­brates his 60th birth­day.