Over the last few weeks, following the news by the Prime Minister that the Government had plans to build a causeway linking the city of Port-of-Spain to Chaguaramas, various people and political parties have laid claim to be originators of the concept. The latest person claiming visionary status was Mr John Humphrey who, although not claiming the prize openly, did not object to the rewards offered; rather, he bathed in the glory which accompanied the claim.
Truth is to be told, the originator of the concept was not PNM, UNC or John Humphrey. It was a simple Grenadian calypsonian by the name of Emmanuel Pierre who sang calypsoes here at Sparrow's OYB in the late 1950s under the sobriquet of Lord Caruso and gave us the Road March of 1959 entitled Run the Gunslingers.
By 1960/61, just prior to our Independence, Caruso, following the visionary scripts of calypsonians Spoiler, Viking, Spitfire, Gibraltar and Viper (to name a few), gave T&T a calypso entitled The Traffic Solution. One of the choruses went thus:
Build a bridge from the Savannah to take passengers straight to Arima;
Build a bridge from Chaguaramas to Port of Spain to catch the Railway bus;
Then, build a bridge across the sea from Port of Spain to San Fernando jetty,
Because the trouble with here so far,
This place overcrowded with motor car.
No room here to hold all dem motor car.
The reader can well note that Caruso foretold today's cruise ship activity to San Fernando as well, but very few, with the exception of Professor Ken Ramchand, Professor Ken Julien and Dr Fazal Ali, provost of UTT, see calypsonians as poets and writers.
In fact, our Bocas Festival organisers hail poets from Chile and Panama and writers from "o-hee-oh-ho" and neglect to place our calypsonians in the forefront of our literary legacy.
Hail Lord Caruso! Writer! Poet! Historian! Visionary!
In education, culture and heritage,
Hollis Liverpool (Chalkdust).
Diego Martin