Aubrey “Bolo” Christopher

​Few may have heard of Aubrey “Bolo” Christopher and his family, but they were among the first Chinese Trinidadians to bring out Carnival bands and to be involved with Calypso. Nicknamed after his favorite bread roll, Bolo came from a family of ten children of Richard Christopher, a Chinese shop owner and businessman and his Venezuelan wife, Narcisa Rodriquez. The family lived on top of their shop at 7 Nelson St. near Tamarind Square. The shop was a grocery and variety store and had a large back yard which was to become a place to hang out for young people who lived in the area.
Bolo was an inquisitive and innovative child who liked to tinker and make things. He made his own bicycle for instance and toys for his siblings to play with. From the age of 11, he began to get dressed up for the Carnival and to play banjo for the bands he took part in.
Between 1927 to 1939, Bolo and his older brothers, Choy Yin and Chin Yu brought out small bands from their home. His mother, Narcisa and his sisters sewed all the costumes, while Choy Yin could make head pieces. A neighbourhood friend, Manzi Lai, would also help out until he too, began bringing out costume bands on his own.
The boys began organizing calypso competitions every Carnival in tent they would set up in the back yard of the shop. Bolo could play several instruments and even composed Calypsos for others as he preferred not to sing.
Bolo was also an athlete, a cyclist who represented Trinidad at his peak. He opened a bike shop which made and sold bikes, and when this business fell off , he began repairing and selling radios. The shop was also importing and selling records and this would lead him to open a small recording studio at the shop. One day, he was asked to help a young calypsonian to record a song called “Yankee Gone”, that had been repurposed from an advertising jingle he had written for Salvatori stores. Bolo liked the tune and pushed the radio stations to play it. It was better known as “Jean and Dinah” and the singer composer was Sparrow.
Richard Christopher, Bolo’s father, never told his family his Chinese name, nor shared much about his early life. When I interviewed Bolo’s sole surviving sibling, a 93 year old sister, Tentie, she said she regretted not taking the trouble to find out. I asked if there was a family plot at the cemetery and there, on one of the headstones, I found the family name in Chinese characters, it is Huang. (Source: Robert Lee, Angelo Bissessarsingh's Virtual Museum of T&T)