Jesse Ramdeo

“George Bai­ley, I’d al­ways re­mem­ber jump­ing when a big band pass, play­ing big mas, sug­ary, pep­pery, he was nev­er ever one for class.”

Such was their in­flu­ence in what is con­sid­ered car­ni­val’s gold­en era, that the Bai­leys have been im­mor­talised by the Mighty Spar­row.

In his ca­lyp­so from the ear­ly 1970s, the Spar­row clas­sic paid trib­ute to cul­tur­al stal­warts who had de­part­ed up to then.

George’s broth­er and mas­ter wire ben­der Al­bert’s name has since been added to the list af­ter he passed away at the age of 86 at his home in Wood­brook ear­li­er this week.

The Bai­leys’ name was not on­ly etched in lyrics but al­so rang out among mas­quer­aders and spec­ta­tors

Rest­ing on top his cof­fin dur­ing yes­ter­day’s fu­ner­al ser­vice at the All Saints An­gli­can Church in Port-of-Spain, was a crown craft­ed from wire for a man con­sid­ered the king of the art form.

But for Fa­ther Ash­ton Gomes, more could have been done to ho­n­our the mas­ter wire ben­der.

He stat­ed, “We can­not be com­ing to the fu­ner­al ser­vice of a mas­man, some­one who ex­pressed him­self in art and cul­ture and then pre­tend by singing these drea­ry hymns, I thought we would have had some kind of ca­lyp­so hap­pen­ing in here, hon­est­ly.”

For the re­li­gious head, the mas­man’s death could mark the end of an el­e­ment in­stru­men­tal to our cos­tumes,

“Why are we not striv­ing to be some­one who ac­tu­al­ly makes Car­ni­val in­to some­thing that is glo­ri­ous and tells a sto­ry rather than just the beads and feath­ers that you want to wear and pay a set of mon­ey for, you could prob­a­bly get it in the store,” Fa­ther Gomes told the con­gre­ga­tion.

But dur­ing her eu­lo­gy, Al­bert’s grand­daugh­ter, Al­en­dra Bai­ley, pledged that the craft will con­tin­ue to live on.

“I learn the crafts­man­ship, I learn the draw­ing, I learn the sewing. I learn every­thing, I drew from a young age, now I’m get­ting ready for 2023 and it is so won­der­ful to do, now as he gone, I don’t know how I will feel.”

Rel­a­tives said de­spite bat­tling with med­ical com­pli­ca­tions over the last sev­er­al years, Bai­ley nev­er turned his back on his love for the art form of wire bend­ing.

The 86-year-old was re­mem­bered for his pas­sion not on­ly for the arts but al­so those clos­est to him.