In his child's mind, lin­ing up in Mr Kean's Shop on Old St Joseph Road, Laven­tille, in post-war Trinidad among 15 or so peo­ple with his ra­tion card in hand was a nor­mal week­ly oc­cur­rence for Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool, known to many as Chalk­dust.

With an abun­dance of fruit from the man­go and sapodil­la trees in his par­ents' yard, he en­joyed life for the most part, along with his six sib­lings, un­aware of his fam­i­ly's pover­ty and scram­ble to make ends meet amid food short­ages and oth­er un­cer­tain­ties fol­low­ing World War II.

Re­flect­ing on his grow­ing years, Liv­er­pool told Sun­day Guardian last week that the cur­rent pan­dem­ic which has sparked mas­sive glob­al un­em­ploy­ment, a re­turn to food cards and gen­er­al dis­tress, is rem­i­nis­cent of the era dur­ing his ear­ly child­hood and rep­re­sents the cy­cle of life.

Born in Ch­aguara­mas in 1941, Liv­er­pool said he was raised in Laven­tille, To­ba­go and Bel­mont by par­ents, Isaac Liv­er­pool and Ed­ward­line Bart­hole­mew.

Dr Hollis Liverpool and his guitar.

“I was con­scious of be­ing alive while in Ch­aguara­mas, but un­der­stood a lit­tle more about life when I lived in Priz­gar Lands, Laven­tille,” he said.

“My fa­ther was the man who was in charge of Priz­gar Lands. He used to col­lect all the rent and so on for Priz­gar Lands and he built hous­es for peo­ple etc. The irony is that he gave a lot of peo­ple hous­es (be­cause of the na­ture of his job), but he nev­er took any for him­self.

“We were very poor, but I didn't know I was so poor. I didn't know any­thing about (was not aware of) pover­ty as a child be­cause plen­ty man­go trees in the yard, plen­ty sapodil­la trees in the yard. We ate sapodil­la and man­go in the morn­ing be­fore we had break­fast. Break­fast was ba­si­cal­ly bake and bush tea. My moth­er was a lover of bush tea,” he said.

Dur­ing World War II and in its af­ter­math, food cards were is­sued since ba­sic sup­plies like rice and flour were in short sup­ply. Fam­i­lies were al­lowed a strict week­ly quo­ta of cer­tain food items. Ra­tion cards en­sured that au­thor­i­ties kept track of what each fam­i­ly re­ceived. Liv­er­pool said as far as he could re­call, the goods on the card were ei­ther free or cov­ered by a small fee from card­hold­ers.

Re­veal­ing that one of his ra­tion cards was stored some­where in his home li­brary, Liv­er­pool said he be­lieved each per­son in a house­hold was giv­en a card. The cards had 52 slots and every week when you col­lect­ed your goods, the shop­keep­er would punch your card. But find­ing it hard to sat­is­fy sev­en chil­dren and two adults on the mea­gre week­ly ra­tions, Liv­er­pool said his moth­er found a crafty means of squeez­ing more food from the shop­keep­er.

“Rice, flour, sug­ar were the main things my moth­er used to send us to get. I used to go by a shop on Old St Joseph Road (Laven­tille)–pass through the back of Priz­gar Lands where that big steel­band is now–a shop called Mr Kean Shop. One time, I re­mem­ber buy­ing rice and some­thing else on my ra­tion card and when I reached home, my moth­er changed my red short pants and gave me a blue pants and sent me back for two pounds of rice again. We changed cloth­ing to fool the Chi­nese man,” he laughed.

“We would go to the left-hand side of the shop with ra­tion cards where the oil and the pitch oil were and so on and there was an­oth­er part of the shop for milk and oth­er pro­vi­sions. I re­mem­ber that well.”

When Liv­er­pool was sev­en or eight, his fa­ther sold their “lit­tle” house and moved the fam­i­ly to To­ba­go.

There were no ra­tion cards then. His moth­er would catch her “ne­nen” to buy pro­vi­sions to feed him, his three broth­ers, three sis­ters, his fa­ther and her­self, Liv­er­pool re­called.

“So when we went to To­ba­go, my moth­er and fa­ther start­ed plant­i­ng. Some­body gave them land–a woman called Mrs Crooks–and my fa­ther plant­ed pota­toes.”

He said his Trinida­di­an fa­ther drew on his Vin­cent­ian back­ground, al­so cul­ti­vat­ing peas and corn.

“My fa­ther said his fa­ther named him af­ter (Sir) Isaac New­ton (fa­mous British math­e­mati­cian and physi­cist). He was a very smart fel­la. I didn't know my fa­ther was so smart un­til I got old­er and re­mem­bered the things he used to say,” Liv­er­pool re­called.

Mem­o­ries of the ra­tion card

In his 80 years, Liv­er­pool has lived through the af­ter­math of WWII and the Black Pow­er Move­ment. He has seen this coun­try's in­de­pen­dence and var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and so­cial changes. A gri­ot who skill­ful­ly weaves events in Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to lofty, hard-hit­ting para­bles in song and a stok­er of so­cial and po­lit­i­cal con­science, as a ca­lyp­son­ian since the age of 26, Chalk­dust has been the eyes and voice of the peo­ple. He has weighed in on many crit­i­cal is­sues through an art form he has fought to pre­serve.

Asked to com­pare as­pects of his life in or­der to bet­ter un­der­stand some of the eco­nom­ic and so­cial fall­out of this pan­dem­ic, the cur­rent Head of Arts, Let­ters, Cul­ture and Pub­lic Af­fairs at UTT and hold­er of a PhD in His­to­ry and Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan said it was a case of his­to­ry re­peat­ing it­self.

“I nev­er thought I would live to see the Gov­ern­ment giv­ing grants to the un­em­ployed, to peo­ple who lost their jobs etc, so it's his­to­ry-mak­ing. Peo­ple who are get­ting those now, they wouldn't know about the ra­tion card. When I saw it, it brought back mem­o­ries of the ra­tion card.”

He said that the grants be­ing giv­en out to­day were bet­ter than ra­tion cards in terms of val­ue.

“I'm sure it's a big help for peo­ple. It's good to see the Gov­ern­ment give grants. They gave a grant to ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, artistes. They got a $5,000 grant. A lot of them claimed it. Those who could claim, it helped them,” he said.

Last Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert de­liv­ered the 2022 na­tion­al Bud­get which some dubbed “a crix, pig­tail and wa­ter” bud­get in re­sponse to the re­moval of Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) from cer­tain ba­sic food items be­gin­ning No­vem­ber 1 in an at­tempt to ease food prices. Asked about his thoughts on this, Liv­er­pool, who said he was not par­ti­san, sought to put T&T's sit­u­a­tion in­to per­spec­tive us­ing events that were un­fold­ing dai­ly on the in­ter­na­tion­al scene.

“'Pig­tail, crack­ers and wa­ter bud­get'? I do not think the peo­ple of the Caribbean are au courant with the hard­ships of peo­ple in the rest of the world. For eg, A guy sent me a sto­ry to show that if you're liv­ing in a house and you have a salary, wa­ter and a lit­tle food, you are liv­ing in the top six per cent in the whole world.

Dr Hollis "Chalkdust" Liverpool.

MARIELA BRUZUAL

“Peo­ple don't re­alise the suf­fer­ing of peo­ple in Ghana, Nige­ria and Ethiopia with all the wars go­ing on, and the hunger of all those refugees; peo­ple dy­ing every day, peo­ple dy­ing just to get to North­ern Africa, peo­ple dy­ing to cross the Mediter­ranean Sea every day, thou­sands and thou­sands try­ing to get in­to Mex­i­co, in­clud­ing the Haitians. The pop­u­la­tion try­ing to get in­to Mex­i­co is big­ger than Trinidad's,” he said.

“I don't think Trinida­di­ans know of the suf­fer­ings of peo­ple out­side, so even though they may say it's a pig­tail bud­get, it is so much bet­ter than what mil­lions in this world have who can't buy pig­tail or can't see a pig.

“Take Eu­rope right now; when you go to Italy right be­hind where the Pope liv­ing, you see thou­sands and thou­sands of mi­grants beg­ging for food every day. My wife and chil­dren went to Rome three years ago and when they came back the first thing they told me is if you see the amount (num­ber) of beg­gars, if you see the amount (num­ber) of mi­grants in Rome,” he said.

He said al­though peo­ple were hard-hit by food prices in Trinidad at present, we were in a much bet­ter po­si­tion than many, es­pe­cial­ly, “any­body in the British Caribbean.”

He said al­though our di­verse cul­tures and eth­nic­i­ties were a strong point, they al­so posed prob­lems for any lead­er­ship to please every­one, as he had been told by lead­ers like Dr Er­ic Williams and Makan­dal Daa­gar.

'We are go­ing to sur­vive'

Turn­ing to the di­vi­sion over the COVID vac­cine which has giv­en rise to a tense cli­mate, es­pe­cial­ly in the US where vaxxers are force­ful­ly pit­ting them­selves against an­ti-vaxxers, he said while there would al­ways be peo­ple who would chal­lenge or re­sist the sys­tem, they had to be tol­er­at­ed.

“To­day many are ex­posed to tech­nol­o­gy to which peo­ple yes­ter­day were not ex­posed. Peo­ple of yes­ter­day weren't able to see what was hap­pen­ing in the States, in Chi­na. When I was a boy when my fa­ther sent mon­ey for me from To­ba­go it used to take a whole week to reach Trinidad. To­day peo­ple are putting on the TV and see­ing what is hap­pen­ing all over. News is spread­ing much faster so peo­ple take po­si­tions.”

Liv­er­pool said more knowl­edge gave peo­ple more choic­es.

“When I went to school and when I taught in pri­ma­ry school, chil­dren had no choice. When the doc­tor come in the school at Nel­son Street, every man line up and if you didn't, the prin­ci­pal had a big whip and buss yuh tail...and if you didn't take the vac­cine you couldn't go to school. Par­ents had no op­tions.

“In fact, I like what David Rud­der said in a con­cert (three weeks ago). He said if he had re­ceived the vac­ci­na­tion for po­lio, he would have been walk­ing (nor­mal­ly) to­day,” Liv­er­pool said.

He said con­cerns about tak­ing the vac­cine al­so stemmed from “a small mi­nor­i­ty” of su­per­sti­tious peo­ple, “a big­ger mi­nor­i­ty of peo­ple who be­lieve the vac­cine would kill them” and “a large mi­nor­i­ty who say gov­ern­ments out to kill black peo­ple.”

Liv­er­pool said peo­ple formed their opin­ions de­pend­ing on where they got their facts; on which books they read and must be care­ful in do­ing their re­search.

How­ev­er, point­ing to cli­mate change and the oc­cur­rence of hail in Trinidad re­cent­ly, he said no one, not even sci­en­tists had all the an­swers to ex­plain many re­cent phe­nom­e­na, so it was not the place of so­ci­ety to judge those who held dif­fer­ent views.

“Some say the world is com­ing to an end. So I don't get an­gry. You can't be judge­men­tal about peo­ple who say they not tak­ing the vac­cine.”

He said some with opin­ions that con­tra­dict the ma­jor­i­ty could be­come agents of pos­i­tive change.

“All through my life, I've seen prob­lems. I've seen chal­lenges, but at the same time, I have seen growth and de­vel­op­ment. When you look at the Black Pow­er for eg, you see peo­ple march­ing for their rights...it was the mi­nor­i­ty. From But­ler's days come right up, we have al­ways had peo­ple who are an­ti-gov­ern­ment, who are an­ti-what­ev­er the so­ci­ety is say­ing. You can­not con­demn them. In the days of But­ler peo­ple were beat­en, peo­ple were ar­rest­ed. But­ler was jailed for eight years. Peo­ple were locked up for beat­ing (play­ing) pan, peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for singing ca­lyp­so on Wright­son Road.

“Peo­ple were shot to death in the Wa­ter Ri­ots in 1903 be­cause they de­mand­ed wa­ter. Trinidad's his­to­ry is filled with all sorts of strug­gles, but we are still here. In all this pan­dem­ic, we are go­ing to sur­vive. Some will die, but we are go­ing to sur­vive.”

Re­deemed by Prime Min­is­ters

Af­ter the pan­dem­ic, there would be oth­er ob­sta­cles as this was part of the cy­cle of life, Liv­er­pool said.

The kaiso bard who be­gan his singing ca­reer in 1967 said he was giv­en “licks” and “long penance from 3:30 pm to 5 pm for three days” when he dared to go against the rules and sing ca­lyp­so as a stu­dent of St Mary's Col­lege.

“Now I am on their (tro­phy) wall as a dis­tin­guished son.”

Liv­er­pool who taught at pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools from 1958 to the turn of the cen­tu­ry, re­called that in 1968 while a teacher at St Mary's, he was dis­missed from the Ser­vice for again, singing the art form that was frowned up­on at the time.

“Er­ic Williams saved me. They (the me­dia) asked Dr Er­ic Williams: what do you think about Chalk­dust be­ing sent home for singing ca­lyp­so? These were his ex­act words: I don't know why they hum­bug­ging the young man. And the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion re­in­stat­ed me,” he laughed.

Liv­er­pool said he was al­so re­deemed by an­oth­er Prime Min­is­ter–ANR Robin­son– when he got in­to some hot wa­ter while study­ing for his PhD in Michi­gan while still a teacher. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion wrote to him, telling him he had to re­turn home, say­ing he did not need a PhD to teach His­to­ry at the sec­ondary school lev­el. He was there­fore not au­tho­rised to be on leave to pur­sue his stud­ies. Liv­er­pool said he was at a top uni­ver­si­ty and not want­i­ng to lose the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­plete his doc­tor­ate, he wrote to then prime min­is­ter, ANR Robin­son.

“Would you be­lieve I got an an­swer in the reg­is­tered mail? Robin­son wrote me back: Dear Chalk­dust, stay right there, signed ANR Robin­son.”

The for­mer di­rec­tor of cul­ture and Founder of the Car­ni­val In­sti­tute of T&T said one of the high points of his singing ca­reer was singing to 20,000 peo­ple in Ja­maica along­side Jim­my Cliff and re­ceiv­ing a stand­ing ova­tion in 1976. In the height of Bob Mar­ley and reg­gae, he was heart­ened to see their ap­pre­ci­a­tion of ca­lyp­so, he said.

Liv­er­pool, who is known for his sig­na­ture white beard, said God had played a ma­jor role through­out his life.

“Whether you like it or not, there is a God. You may not be­lieve it when you are young, but as you grow old­er you see it. In my life, I have seen God in so many dif­fer­ent ways, that's why I don't shave my beard. It re­minds me of God,” he said.

Shar­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence where he saw God at work, he said in 1987/1988 he had en­rolled in Michi­gan Uni­ver­si­ty and was at the air­port in De­tri­ot de­cid­ing be­tween com­ing back home for a va­ca­tion and fly­ing to At­lanta to give a lec­ture. He said he fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed to for­get At­lanta and take a flight via Mi­a­mi to Trinidad.

“I changed my tick­et to 'Mi­a­mi to Trinidad'. While I was wait­ing, I went and took a drink in the bar and the plane I was sup­posed to take to go to At­lanta crashed and killed every­body. One child was saved. The next day my beard turned grey. The doc­tor told me with the scare, all the hor­mones in my body changed.”

Re­call­ing an­oth­er mirac­u­lous in­ci­dent in his life, he said one day while cross­ing Mar­aval Road and car­ry­ing his gui­tar on his way to do an In­de­pen­dence Day per­for­mance at TTT, a dri­ver sud­den­ly swerved and crashed in­to the wall at TTT. Liv­er­pool said he had to run for his life and fell on the road. The dri­ver who had recog­nised him as “the Mighty Chalk­dust” be­cause of his beard and had done his best to avoid hit­ting him, lat­er told him his beard had saved him.

Flashback March 2017: Dr Hollis "Chalkdust" Liverpool performs "Learn from Arithmetic" enroute to his ninth Calypso Monarch title during the 2017 edition of the Dimanche Gras show at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain.

ANISTO ALVES

Q&A with Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool

This month is Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month. The tra­di­tion­al av­enue for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans to air their views, be the voic­es of the peo­ple has been frus­trat­ed by the pan­dem­ic. They have not been able to per­form for two sea­sons, how do you think they can re­claim their voic­es?

I do hope that when ca­lyp­so­ni­ans can sing again in front of crowds that the tents would be packed. Long ago, the tents used to be packed. A lot of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are in prob­lems right now be­cause they can't get to sing. The ones who are se­ri­ous and re­al­ly do re­search want to com­pose and sing about what is hap­pen­ing and the coun­try is miss­ing them, the Gov­ern­ment is miss­ing them be­cause the Gov­ern­ment al­so lis­tens, the Op­po­si­tion lis­tens, the busi­ness­men lis­ten.

You have to un­der­stand that to put out their work and record costs mon­ey and the Gov­ern­ment has not put any­thing in the bud­get for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, in fact, they said very lit­tle about the arts. When Tan­ty Joan (Yuille-Williams) was around, Tan­ty Joan used to find mon­ey to give ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. Stu­dio costs, re­hearsals, pay­ing mu­si­cians, it's a lot of mon­ey you have to put out so the coun­try is suf­fer­ing from the lack of the voice of the ca­lyp­son­ian. And not on­ly the coun­try be­cause the di­as­po­ra is lis­ten­ing, look­ing for ca­lyp­soes. Lon­don is lis­ten­ing. Peo­ple are danc­ing to Trinidad ca­lyp­so in Swe­den and the Gov­ern­ment has to re­alise that in this time of the pan­dem­ic, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans need help be­cause they mar­ket Trinidad over­seas.

Some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans would have to take out a loan, seek help from TU­CO, but I'm sure they will do some­thing. A re­al ca­lyp­son­ian would not be com­fort­able un­less he com­pos­es and sings a ca­lyp­so.

You have been a teacher for many years, how do you feel about hav­ing a par­al­lel school sys­tem where teach­ers teach vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in per­son and un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents at home vir­tu­al­ly?

I feel you need to teach all chil­dren. Those whom you have to teach face-to-face would present a prob­lem be­cause some teach­ers would not feel com­fort­able in front of chil­dren who have not been vac­ci­nat­ed and some par­ents would feel un­com­fort­able to have their chil­dren taught by un­vac­ci­nat­ed teach­ers. The Gov­ern­ment has to re-or­gan­ise the whole sys­tem. Noth­ing could make up for face-to-face teach­ing, and cer­tain­ly, we can't teach just part of the na­tion. You look­ing for prob­lems. Peo­ple who give us prob­lems are chil­dren who are not ed­u­cat­ed prop­er­ly. Once a child does not have ba­sic ed­u­ca­tion he would be tend to be­come a tru­ant, a crim­i­nal.

We are at war with COVID-19, an un­re­lent­ing en­e­my, how do we re­bound as a na­tion?

If I had to talk to the na­tion I would say to eat prop­er­ly so your body can sur­vive– food is med­i­cine–avoid crowds, places where there will be dis­ease, avoid peo­ple who are wrath­ful, live well with oth­ers–you bounce a man in the road, say sor­ry, live your life for God.