RALPH BAN­WARIE

Franklyn Boodans­ingh, the old­est busi­ness­man in San­gre Grande, says he got in­to busi­ness when he was just a lit­tle boy. He said he worked with his un­cle Dan Boodans­ingh in a shop on the East­ern Main Road and loved busi­ness so much that to­day he owns a su­per­mar­ket pro­vid­ing a ser­vice for the grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

Boodans­ingh said the goods pur­chased for his un­cle's shop came from Mar­lay and Com­pa­ny, the on­ly whole­sale and re­tail busi­ness op­er­at­ing in the dis­trict—There was Mar­lay 1 and Mar­lay 2.

Boodans­ingh said Mar­lay be­gan to sell land when the econ­o­my be­gan to de­cline, but they were sell­ing land on cer­tain con­di­tions, one of them be­ing that peo­ple can­not open a busi­ness to sell the same goods that they were sell­ing. How­ev­er, his Un­cle Dan took them to court and won, he said. Peo­ple were then able to buy lands owned by Mar­lay and had it trans­ferred with­out any con­di­tions at­tached.

He re­called that men on don­keys would trans­port the goods to his un­cle's shop, but when they tried to set­tle the an­i­mal to of­fload the items, they would en­counter prob­lems. "They used to say like the don­key re­verse gear is not work­ing and the don­key op­er­a­tor will re­spond by say­ing, 'Yuh Ma­ma', which made every­one laugh."

Boodans­ingh said there were no su­per­mar­kets since peo­ple pre­ferred the shops where they were giv­en the goods on cred­it and pay when they got their salaries. Both cus­tomers and own­ers had some trust in each oth­er and all went well, he said.

He re­called that there were price con­trol of­fi­cers who vis­it­ed to en­sure that goods on the shelves were not over­priced.

Be­ing in busi­ness had its chal­lenges as there were times when they could not get goods to sell and they had to pay black mar­ket prices. This was called the "Black Mar­ket Days," he re­called.

He said with a smile on his face, "Old days were good days, bit­ter-sweet days."

•Mar­lay’s build­ing is now oc­cu­pied by busi­ness­man Bisham Ma­haraj who op­er­ates Ma­haraj Bud­get Price Su­per­mar­ket. The face of the old es­tab­lish­ment still ex­ists to­day.

•The big cloth­ing store in San­gre Grande was Red Store, which was owned by the Mc Carthys and was sit­u­at­ed where KFC restau­rant is now lo­cat­ed on the East­ern Main Road.

•Boodans­ingh said the roads were sur­faced with pitch and they used some­thing re­sem­bling a base­ball bat to beat the pitch to spread it on the roads since there were no rollers at the time. The min­istry re­spon­si­ble for em­ploy­ees was known back then as Pub­lic Works De­part­ment and peo­ple had to work for their mon­ey, he said

•There were few cars in the area in the ear­li­er days. The train was an­oth­er means of trans­port and it was fun trav­el­ling out of Grande to Ari­ma and Port-of-Spain. He re­called that when he was in pri­ma­ry school they went on the train for their ex­cur­sion. This form of trans­port was re­li­able and ef­fi­cient, he said. He said the train used to turn where the old Fire Sta­tion was on Brier­ley Street. The Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice re­placed the train.

•Boodans­ingh said every week­end at a bar called Un­cle Sam Bar there were fights among peo­ple con­sum­ing al­co­hol bev­er­ages, but it end­ed there and the fight­ers be­came best of friends af­ter.

•Many young men who were not in­volved in crick­et or foot­ball were seen with bird­cage in hand or go­ing to the movies. There were two cin­e­mas in San­gre Grande—As­cot and Apol­lo which were both filled with pa­trons for their 1:30 and 4:30 shows. As­cot now hous­es COSTAATT, while Apol­lo was re­built and present­ly hous­es the San­gre Grande Mag­is­trates' Courts.

•The peo­ple of San­gre Grande were hos­pitable and lived like a fam­i­ly, al­ways look­ing out for one an­oth­er.

•Most peo­ple were em­ployed on es­tates that pro­duced co­coa, cof­fee, and cit­rus. Some of the large es­tates that pro­vid­ed most of the em­ploy­ment were Non Pariel es­tate in Oropouche, Hug­gins in First Caigual and Bho­lai es­tate. To­day most of these lands have been sold and is be­ing used for the con­struc­tion of hous­es.

•The main bank in the area was Bar­clays Bank which was op­po­site the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion. To­day there are many fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions like Re­pub­lic Bank, Sco­tia, Roy­al, First Cit­i­zens, Is­land Fi­nance, Unit Trust, East­ern Cred­it, and oth­ers.

•Boodans­ingh did not for­get the pol­i­tics, he said the two best politi­cians to rep­re­sent To­co/San­gre Grande and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la were the late Elmi­na Clarke-Allen and Ram­per­sad Bho­lai. He said peo­ple could have spo­ken to them any­where, they rep­re­sent­ed the peo­ple well and al­so lived in the area.

Boodans­ingh said the town of San­gre Grande has de­vel­oped and the pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing.

Many peo­ple have set­tled on state lands which have now de­vel­oped in­to com­mu­ni­ties.

There are many su­per­mar­kets, Chi­nese restau­rants, fast food out­lets like KFC, Roy­al Cas­tle, Mario’s Piz­za, Sub­way, Dar­ryl’s Fa­mous Foods (for­mer­ly Jap's), and lo­cal food sold on the streets. There are many bars where friends so­cialise.

Com­ing to the San­gre Grande re­gion is com­ing to a place that is peace­ful, safe and boom­ing with ac­tiv­i­ties.

"It is the best part oof Trinidad to live," said Boodans­ingh.

 BOX

 His­to­ry of Grande

 •The name San­gre Grande is a Span­ish term that trans­lates in­to Eng­lish as "Big Blood".

•San­gre Grande is the largest town in north­east­ern Trinidad.

•The town got its name in the 1770s when Span­ish sur­vey­ors who were chart­ing the is­land with the in­tent of cre­at­ing a map, found the wa­ters of two of the trib­u­taries of the near­by Or­pouche Riv­er were as red as blood.

•The area with the larg­er trib­u­tary was named San­gre Grande, while the neigh­bour­ing town San­gre Chiq­ui­to (Small Blood)was named be­cause of the small­er trib­u­tary.

•At­tract­ed by the wa­ter sup­ply, co­coa farm­ers even­tu­al­ly start­ed to move in­to the area.

•How­ev­er, be­cause of the lo­ca­tion of the town trans­port was a prob­lem. San­gre Grande, which is 30 miles from Port-of-Spain, was at that time linked to the near­by town, Ari­ma by on­ly a dirt road.

•In 1876 the Ari­ma rail­way ser­vice was es­tab­lished and helped cre­ate the be­gin­nings of what we know to­day as 'San­gre Grande'.

•The sign at the rail­way sta­tion said 'San­gre Grande Rail­way Sta­tion', but the train stopped at the town of Cu­napo. Even­tu­al­ly, Cu­napo ceased to ex­ist as the name San­gre Grande was im­posed on it.

•The area has ex­pand­ed and is now a thriv­ing town. The pop­u­la­tion of San­gre Grande is more than 20,000.