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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Back in the day we were all family

by

20140827

The T&T Guardian con­cludes its oc­ca­sion­al se­ries fea­tur­ing peo­ple who have been life­long Port-of-Spain res­i­dents, as part of the cel­e­bra­tion of the 100th an­niver­sary of the in­cor­po­ra­tion of the city of Port-of-Spain.

To­day we hear from Ever­ard Gor­don, one of the T&T Guardian's longest-serv­ing em­ploy­ees and a for­mer sports­man. Gor­don spent the ear­ly part of his youth in Duke Street be­fore mov­ing to Bel­mont as a teenag­er.

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My name is Ever­ard Gor­don. I am 81 years old and I am a for­mer am­a­teur box­er who boxed at na­tion­al lev­el in the 1950s.

I was al­so the St Mary's Col­lege and the Trinidad wel­ter­weight am­a­teur box­ing cham­pi­on. In the 1940s I spent most of my child­hood liv­ing in the city of Port-of-Spain with my ten sib­lings, be­fore my par­ents, Leo and Emel­da Pick­ford-Gor­don, de­cid­ed on mov­ing the fam­i­ly to Nor­folk Street in Bel­mont, where we found a big­ger and bet­ter home.

I can re­call there were a lot of hap­py times spent in the house we lived in at 81 Duke Street, Port-of-Spain. Peo­ple liv­ing in that com­mu­ni­ty were like one big fam­i­ly. Every­body looked out for each oth­er.

I par­tic­u­lar­ly re­mem­ber a place we called "con­crete yard." It was just be­tween Hen­ry and Char­lotte streets. There were a lot of apart­ments in that yard. You had to be a good fight­er when you went in­to that yard, be­cause once the boys met up there, there would be fights. Not ma­li­cious or vi­cious fights, just good old boy days.

At the en­trance of con­crete yard, there were al­so two ven­dors who sold chataigne, plums and oth­er preser­v­a­tives. Six cents would give you plen­ty and still leave you with change.

I al­so re­mem­ber our neigh­bours, the Chris­tians. We would of­ten take food over to each oth­er's homes by pass­ing through a big hole in the wall that sep­a­rat­ed us.

My fa­ther was al­so very much of a cul­ture man; in fact he ran a record shop called Ritz at the cor­ner of Dock Road and Sackville Street in Port-of-Spain. Un­like oth­er folks who would keep their chil­dren away from any­thing con­cern­ing pan be­cause of the neg­a­tive stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with it in those days, my fa­ther would al­low us to go up to the All Stars pa­n­yard just east of Char­lotte Street. Boy, we used to have a re­al good time there.

What I loved about liv­ing in Port-of Spain the most was its con­ve­nient lo­ca­tion. It was so close to every­thing, es­pe­cial­ly the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and we loved go­ing there. Af­ter school, a group of us would head up to the Sa­van­nah to play foot­ball and crick­et. On week­ends, my broth­ers and I would go there to fly kites with friends.

I al­so re­mem­ber the big stores on Fred­er­ick Street like the Sal­va­tori store, Millers and JT John­son Ltd.

When you want­ed some­thing spe­cial, Fred­er­ick Street was the place to go. On Char­lotte Street, peo­ple would most­ly go there to buy food­stuff as many gro­ceries were there. And if you want­ed pro­duce you would take a walk on George Street.

Win­dow shop­ping was al­so a big thing for our fam­i­ly. My dad used to take us to see the things he in­tend­ed to buy the week or month af­ter. He would get the price and save up the mon­ey and then go back to buy it.

Cin­e­ma in those days was al­so a big deal. When you hear any­body say, we go­ing the­atre, man it was like go­ing to a big-time event. We used to fre­quent Globe and Deluxe cin­e­mas in town.

Af­ter cin­e­ma we would all walk back home and it was safe. No­body ha­rassed you and you nev­er had to wor­ry about be­ing robbed. It's not so now.

I don't know, I think every­thing changed at the end of World War I. Trinidad be­came heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by Amer­i­can cul­ture which at the time was a very vi­o­lent one. Amer­i­ca was ac­cus­tomed to gangs and guns in those times.

Port-of-Spain may nev­er re­turn to what it used to be, or Trinidad for that mat­ter. But if by some stroke of luck it does, the first thing I would like to see is the restora­tion of fam­i­lies and fam­i­ly life. And I am not talk­ing blood on­ly, but back to the times when we were all tru­ly our broth­ers' keep­er.


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