One of the few remaining outdoor pleasures of living in Port-of-Spain is the walk up Lady Chancellor Hill. It used to be the Savannah but that’s become too congested even at five in the morning and what with the roar of traffic and the stench of exhausts, it’s impossible at five in the evening.
Chancellor was named after Mary Elizabeth Chancellor, the wife of John Chancellor, the English governor between 1916 and 1921. I can find nothing special about her and one wonders why the hill was so named. Her husband is the bastard who passed the Shouter Baptist Prohibition Ordinance on November 27, 1917, which prevented followers of the Baptist faith from practicing their religion in public on the grounds that the Baptist practice of chanting, shouting and ringing of bells disturbed the peace. On that ground alone, the name should be changed.
Chancellor is 2.2 miles long or just under a Savannah but unlike the Savannah, once you go up you have to come down. A good time for doing the 4.4 miles is around an hour. That means you have not lingered along the way, which is a shame since part of the walk is the appreciation of the sounds, wind whistling through tree branches, green parrots squawking overhead, rustling bamboo, the occasional roar of lions from the zoo; smells, horse dung at the bottom perfume on the way up, smoke from forest fires at the top and perhaps the best, the sights along the way, the winding road, ships at anchor in the Gulf, the Port-of-Spain skyline, the poor broken down San Fernando Hill in the distance and ominously, pollution over Caroni, described by one wag as “rain falling.” This must have been the same gentleman who, walking from brilliant sunshine into a bamboo-shaded area, called for “rain about to fall, yes.” There are many like him who can’t see the sunshine for the clouds.
Most of the people are your ordinary Trinidadians salted with the occasional foreigner.
Unlike the Savannah, people are friendly on Chancellor. Most say “how?” or “right!” or grunt and lift a hand in passing. Perhaps it’s the effort. Perhaps it’s the surroundings. They are also regular and punctual. There’s a four am set, mostly single men who must be dreamers. There’s the five am group, doubles partners who set off in darkness and return by day. And the 6 in the morning regulars. There are the talkers who you can hear coming from miles. Those who are either scared of silence and birdsong or want you to know their preference so walk with their radios blaring. Those intent on their heart rate. Those who could care less. The lean, the fat, the big, the small, dressed or not in the latest fashion, the speechifiers, the listeners, the smilers, the frowners.
And then there are the characters. The gentleman from Belmont who had a stroke many years ago but who struggles up Chancellor every Sunday morning. The elderly athlete who jogs slowly but steadily past all the walkers and who got upset when I passed him walking so he passed me again. Another friend with the bad knee who refuses to give in to pain and limps his way up and back twice a week. The fellow who runs up and when he reaches the top endlessly circles the flat area for minutes and minutes before heading back. The early morning weekday group led by Major Pain who do jumping jacks and pushups and sometimes pull tyres up and down Teresita until they collapse in pain. All characters but none more so than “Mile a Minute.”
“Mile A Minute” was a short, skinny little Chinese man who sold nuts walking around the Savannah in the fifties. His nicknames came from the speed at which he walked. Let’s rename Lady Chancellor Hill “Mile A Minute Hill” in honour of a true, true, Trini walker.