SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The St Thomas Sil­ver Stars, a Ch­agua­nas steel­band, has been giv­en a tem­po­rary home un­til Ash Wednes­day. The band, which has been in ex­is­tence for six years, was evict­ed from the space it oc­cu­pied at St Thomas Vil­lage fol­low­ing the death of Nor­man Sylvester, the band's founder, in Sep­tem­ber.

A spokesman for the band said the in­stru­ments had been stored at Sylvester's home. How­ev­er, fol­low­ing his death his rel­a­tives told band mem­bers to re­move the pans from the com­pound. Since then, the 35 band mem­bers have not been able to prac­tise and the pans were put in­to stor­age.

Good news came on Sat­ur­day when Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er in­ter­vened and arranged tem­po­rary hous­ing for the band on the site of the aban­doned Ch­agua­nas Trade School at St Thomas Vil­lage. The school, where cours­es in weld­ing, wood­work and pho­tog­ra­phy were once taught, has been aban­doned for more than a decade.

Warn­er said he is mak­ing arrange­ments to in­stall tem­po­rary toi­lets and gen­er­a­tors for light­ing at the long aban­doned build­ing. He said Cepep will be­gin­clean­ing up the area from to­day. Ch­agua­nas may­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar said he was ap­palled to see one of the area's finest steel­bands home­less. He said he plans to lob­by the Gov­ern­ment for a per­ma­nent home for the band.