Pe­ter Ray Blood

The West In­dies at War is a four-part tele­vi­sion se­ries that tells the lit­tle known sto­ry of sol­diers from the West In­dies who fought and died in World War I.

Many of these valiant men were not al­lowed to en­list be­cause of their race. Af­ter months of strug­gle and with a steadi­ly ris­ing death toll on bat­tle­fields across the world, the men of the Caribbean were fi­nal­ly al­lowed in­to the fray.

The West In­dies at War was pro­duced and di­rect­ed by award-win­ning film­mak­er Mariel Brown who said she was dri­ven to pro­duce this tele­vi­sion se­ries as when the World War I cen­te­nary cel­e­bra­tions be­gan there was a no­tice­able ab­sence of his­tor­i­cal ac­counts on the in­volve­ment of the West In­dies and its peo­ple.

"My aim is to elu­ci­date our West In­di­an sto­ries as told by our­selves," added Brown.

She ex­plained that dur­ing the war, the men ex­pe­ri­enced dis­crim­i­na­tion at the hands of their white coun­ter­parts and were forced in­to me­nial labour roles. Said Brown: "Up­on their re­turn to the Caribbean, the em­bit­tered sol­diers, led by Arthur Cipri­ani, Uri­ah But­ler and Nor­man Man­ley, band­ed to­geth­er and ral­lied the mass­es against their colo­nial op­pres­sors for the right to vote and ap­point lo­cal men on­to the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil. The First World War shook every­thing up."

Brown con­tin­ued: "Ini­tial­ly, black peo­ple from the Caribbean were not even al­lowed to en­list in a reg­i­ment be­cause the think­ing was that it would be dan­ger­ous to teach them how to fire weapons. The War Of­fice in Eng­land was con­cerned that once trained, black sol­diers could pick up arms against the British colo­nials in the re­gion and rebel."

This is not Brown's ini­tial for­ay in­to a his­tor­i­cal doc­u­men­tary of this kind. Her doc­u­men­tary, In­ward Hunger: The Sto­ry of Er­ic Williams, won the 2011 prize for Best Lo­cal Fea­ture Film at the T&T Film Fes­ti­val. The sto­ry is told through rare archival footage and pho­tographs, wo­ven to­geth­er with in­ter­views from lead­ing Caribbean his­to­ri­ans, jour­nal­ists and writ­ers, in­clud­ing pro­fes­sors Brins­ley Sama­roo and Brid­get Br­ere­ton, jour­nal­ist Judy Ray­mond and award-win­ning writ­ers Oliv­er Se­nior and Lawrence Scott. The se­ries al­so fea­tures a mov­ing orig­i­nal mu­sic score by T&T com­pos­er, Francesco Em­manuel.

Born in Eng­land but raised in Trinidad, as a child Brown's dreams in­clud­ed be­com­ing an ice skater (yes, in Trinidad) or an ar­chi­tect. "I grew up with a mom who was an in­te­ri­or de­sign­er, and a dad who was a writer. I was not good at Math or Physics so fol­low­ing in mom's ca­reer path was out. When one grows with cre­ative peo­ple who have deep in­ter­est and cu­rios­i­ty in the Caribbean it rubs off on a young per­son.

"So, when I got my first job at Trinidad & To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) as a re­porter I re­alised that I want­ed to be able to tell sto­ries of my peo­ple. Peo­ple want­ed to have their sto­ries told. The more in­volved I got in tele­vi­sion the more I re­alised how mar­gin­alised we were in our own lo­cal broad­cast mi­lieu. Work­ing with Tony Fras­er at TTT was just a gift. He was a fan­tas­tic men­tor and he gave me the room to grow."

At TTT, Brown got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do doc­u­men­taries which were more dri­ven by hu­man in­ter­est as op­posed to news. Brown said: "We were al­lowed by Tony to pro­duce 15-20-minute pro­grammes which gave me the chance to ex­plore a sub­ject in depth, and to be more cre­ative. My first en­try in­to in­de­pen­dent pro­duc­tion came with San­coche, a 30-minute cook­ing and lifestyle aired on Gayelle and TV 6. Sub­se­quent­ly it was aired across the Caribbean. San­coche ran for six sea­sons, to­talling al­most 100 episodes.

"San­coche made me un­der­stand fund-rais­ing, work­ing with an in­de­pen­dent crew and how a pro­duc­er fol­lows through on a vi­sion. While I was do­ing San­coche I al­so did Mak­ing Mas with Bri­an Mac Far­lane in 2006. That was an ex­cit­ing time for me as it marked my en­try in­to the world in­de­pen­dent doc­u­men­tary film-mak­ing."

Brown stopped do­ing San­coche in 2008 and be­gan fo­cussing en­tire­ly on mak­ing doc­u­men­taries. Fol­low­ing Mak­ing Mas with Bri­an Mac Far­lane, a six-part TV se­ries, she went on to do The In­sa­tiable Sea­son, The Soli­tary Al­chemist, In­ward Hunger: The Sto­ry of Er­ic Williams, and the short film Small­man: The World My Fa­ther Made.

Cre­at­ed and pro­duced by Sa­vant Films, The West In­dies at War was com­mis­sioned by the Par­lia­ment Chan­nel. Brown's re­la­tion with The Par­lia­ment Chan­nel be­gan in 2013 when she was com­mis­sioned to do a ten-part doc­u­men­tary se­ries ti­tled With­in These Walls. "That se­ries looked at some of the most icon­ic build­ings in Trinidad," said Brown, "like the Red House, White­hall, Pres­i­dent's House and Knowsley Build­ing. It in­te­grat­ed my in­ter­est in ar­chi­tec­ture, his­to­ry and the Caribbean. It was like dream job.

"I think The Par­lia­ment Chan­nel was hap­py with it and my pro­duc­er went for the no­tion of do­ing West In­dies at War when I pitched the idea for it to her. She re­al­ly went to bat for this se­ries to be made. It was signed off by the Clerk of the House."

The West In­dies at War ap­pro­pri­ate­ly pre­mieres on Memo­r­i­al Day (No­vem­ber 11) at 8pm, on The Par­lia­ment Chan­nel (Chan­nel 11 on Flow).

For more in­for­ma­tion vis­it The Par­lia­ment Chan­nel web­site at www.ttpar­lia­ment.org