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Thursday, July 24, 2025

United in song remembering calypsonian who led strikers

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20140618

Of course every­one will be cel­e­brat­ing Tubal Uri­ah But­ler to­day for launch­ing the mod­ern labour move­ment, and maybe a few hats will be tipped to his deputy Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, who con­tin­ued the strug­gle through le­gal av­enues.

But it is about time Tri­nis give recog­ni­tion to the ca­lyp­son­ian and pan pi­o­neer who led the strik­ers, Rudolph Xavier, who was shot and sen­tenced for it while But­ler was in hid­ing.

Born in 1911, Xavier, who passed away in the 1990s, was the sec­ond youngest of his sev­en sib­lings. They lived in Besson Street, Port-of-Spain. His moth­er was a ven­dor in the mar­ket.

When I met him years ago, he shared one of his most vivid mem­o­ries of the near­by quar­ry from those days.

"I used to stand every morn­ing by the gap to see the pris­on­ers from the jail march­ing un­der turnkey pro­tec­tion, go­ing to work," he told me. "The men were wear­ing flourbag jail clothes, in their belt every one have an enam­el or gal­va­nize cup, and they car­ry­ing tools�shov­el, pick­axe, crow­bar, sledge ham­mer�march­ing from the Roy­al Gaol to the quar­ry."

He couldn't have sus­pect­ed how close he'd come to join­ing them lat­er in life. Op­po­site was a bar­rack yard where on Sun­days, the lit­tle boy watched Grena­di­ans hold­ing their African drum dances.

As a teen Xavier moved with his moth­er to San Fer­nan­do, where his­to­ry would touch him. As he did in Port-of-Spain, he as­sist­ed her vend­ing in the mar­ket, but around 16, he de­vel­oped greater am­bi­tions. He bor­rowed an old­er broth­er's kha­ki trousers and, claim­ing to be 21, he sought work in Pointe-a-Pierre.

He start­ed rolling pitch oil drums in the bond for six cents an hour, nine hours a day. When that end­ed he got an­oth­er job on a pipe-fit­ting sec­tion, and there it was that he be­gan singing for his sup­per.

"There was no ma­chines, no crane, no trac­tor, no fork­lift," he ex­plained. "Every­thing was man-han­dled. If they had a tank to build, men dragged the sheets there from the near­est spot where the trucks dropped them."

They'd put the steel sheets to roll on four-inch pipes, and the men would be heav­ing as they re­spond­ed to the call of a chantwell:

Call: Mary gone a-moun­tain

Re­sponse: High land dey

Call: She gone for yel­low plan­tain

Re­sponse: High land dey

Call: Hooray, Miss Mary

Re­sponse: High land dey

Call: What you go­ing to cook to­day?

There were long, slow chants to drag steel sheets with, short­er ones to lift rigs with, stac­ca­to spo­ken call-re­spons­es for thread­ing pipes. Every one of the many dif­fer­ent man­u­al gang tasks was done in the African fash­ion to song, and the leader who set the rhythm of work was the chantwell.

The chantwell's was an in­valu­able role which de­pend­ed on the in­spir­ing qual­i­ties of his singing and his sense of tim­ing be­cause it de­ter­mined the pace and ef­fi­cien­cy of the work. It was a job once done by a young Ald­wyn Roberts on the rail­way in Ari­ma.

"My job was to sing and to see if every­thing was go­ing prop­er­ly, or else I'd have to stop the gang," said Xavier. "If you singing too fast the men might bawl, 'Hold it, hold it,' but when it go­ing good the fel­las get a zeal and they vex when the work stop. If we work­ing near the road, peo­ple pass­ing by would stop and join us, be­cause we work­ing with har­mo­ny and love."

Back home with his friends Xavier al­so sang, this time to the rhythms of gin bot­tles and lengths of bam­boo. Some­times he'd sing with more or­tho­dox in­stru­ments, such as a gui­tar or a cu­a­tro, at a chris­ten­ing. And as was in­evitable, he be­came the chantwell lead­ing a tam­boo bam­boo band, Toll Gate bam­boo band from Cipero Street.

That was where he limed, even though he was liv­ing on Cof­fee Street in the 1930s, and he quick­ly be­came known, be­cause of his lead­er­ship qual­i­ties, as King Xavier.

Then it hap­pened. On Sat­ur­day, June 19 Cpl Char­lie King was burnt to death in Fyz­abad while at­tempt­ing to ar­rest But­ler.

The next day, Sun­day, Xavier was help­ing his moth­er in the mar­ket, where peo­ple were grum­bling about the at­tempt to ar­rest But­ler. On the Mon­day he went to work by Cof­fee Street when a large crowd marched up call­ing for King Xavier.

"Pointe-a-Pierre shut down and we go­ing to shut down Usine Ste Madeleine," they told him. In­tim­i­dat­ed, his boss closed the work­place, and Xavier left with the pro­test­ers, lead­ing them with his singing, uni­fy­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of hun­dreds of men and women with his im­pro­vised call:

Xavier: We eh work­ing at all, we want mon­ey

Re­sponse: Hooray, hur­rah!

Xavier: Mon­day morn­ing give we we mon­ey

Re­sponse: Hooray, hur­rah!

The demon­stra­tors closed down the mar­ket. They emp­tied Globe the­atre, and then Em­pire the­atre. They moved to the rail­way sta­tion and closed that too. Then they moved on to Usine. Then to the pow­er sta­tion, stop­ping all work, swelling their num­bers with re­leased work­ers. With Xavier in front they de­cid­ed to go to the tele­phone ex­change.

When they ar­rived it was sur­round­ed by armed sol­diers. They crowd stopped. Some­one from be­hind flung a brick at the sol­diers and the white of­fi­cer barked an or­der: "Raise your arms and shoot!"

The vol­un­teers shot some rounds up in the sky. But the crowd still inched for­ward, men be­hind shout­ing: "Is blank shot they fir­ing!"

Then the of­fi­cer or­dered, "Low­er arms and fire!"

Xavier re­called, "From that I hear peo­ple bawl­ing 'O Gawd!' 'Je­sus Christ!'

"And I see a fel­la fall."

Fear gripped him and he froze, as if in a night­mare. "My foot cyar move at all. Then I just feel bam! on my hand. I hold it and lie down."

Then he heard the of­fi­cer bark an or­der "Cease fire!"

The bul­let had passed right through his fore­arm, shat­ter­ing both bones.

Xavier was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal, where over the next days Dr Hen­ry Pierre (who lat­er was made Sir Hen­ry), laboured by can­dle­light (they had shut off the pow­er sta­tion) to patch up wound­ed strik­ers.

While hand­cuffed to the hos­pi­tal bed Xavier was charged on nine counts of lead­ing the ri­ot­ers: one count for each street.

Even­tu­al­ly sen­tenced in ab­sen­tia by a mag­is­trate to three months' hard labour, Xavier nev­er made it to the pris­on­ers' quar­ry of his youth, though. In­stead, he whiled his sen­tence away in the Colo­nial Hos­pi­tal.

Once he was back on the streets Xavier con­tin­ued his singing vo­ca­tion, go­ing so far as to take a turn in a ca­lyp­so tent dur­ing the Sec­ond World War. He re­called, "I went to the tent in Port-of-Spain with a friend and I see Li­on, all of them, but the more I drink rum the more I cyar build a head to go on that stage."

Even­tu­al­ly they forced his hand: "Now ladies and gen­tle­men, your de­sire is at hand," an­nounced the MC: "The great King Xavier!"

He stepped up and be­gan:

Ma­bel, I'm leav­ing home

I'm go­ing to take a chance on the bat­tle zone

(re­peat)

I can't re­main in La Trin­i­ty

I mean for Hitler to reign king in Ger­many

Girl, I'm go­ing to fly to Amer­i­ca

Dar­ling, I'm try­ing to make my­self an avi­a­tor.

The crowd went wild, but Xavier nev­er re­turned for a fol­low-up.

In­stead, around 1942 he turned to the lat­est craze that was sweep­ing young peo­ple, steel­band. He used to beat bis­cuit-drum boom in the tam­boo bam­boo band, but now he start­ed col­lect­ing pans and was joined by young­sters like Emile "Zo­la" Williams. Xavier didn't keep the pans by his Toll Gate bam­boo yard, how­ev­er, but at his bach­e­lor apart­ment in Cof­fee Street: a place no­tice­able for its neat­ness and the long row of pot­ted palms he'd laid out, so that peo­ple would re­fer to it as King Xavier's Buck­ing­ham Palace.

So he called that first Cof­fee Street steel­band, Buck­ing­ham Boys, which would knock a lit­tle pan dur­ing the war. It was the be­gin­ning of the end, how­ev­er, for the hu­man voice was about to be re­moved from the streets by the steel­band, with its greater vol­ume and melod­ic ca­pac­i­ty.

"On VE (Vic­to­ry in Eu­rope) Day when we parad­ing, I on the boom, com­ing up High Street I watch in a store and saw my­self in the show­case," Xavier told me. "I could see me with an old hat and this hot sun and how I sweat­ing and look­ing mis­er­able and nasty, and I say, 'Come out of this thing.'"

He gave his bis­cuit drum to a mas­quer­ad­er and walked away for ever.

�2 Dr Kim John­son is the Di­rec­tor of the Car­ni­val In­sti­tute.


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