THE EDITOR: The early development and use of “West Park” was under the auspices of Charles Arthur Richards Farrell who was the first local city engineer and not his son Harry Farrell as has been stated in Newsday twice in December. He was my grandfather.
Charles Farrell must be remembered for bringing potable water to the people of TT as well as for the building of beautiful pumping stations around the city which are now memories and one in West Park, Cocorite (directly opposite The Falls at West Mall) – a relic crying out to be restored.
His grandchildren remember being taken on many a Sunday afternoon drive to see the then functioning pumping station in Cocorite. They remember that there were three stations in all around the city, they remember being mesmerised by the huge, gleaming, brass fans and shiny fittings, the curiously shaped windows with curved window panes spotted with diamond shapes of brightly coloured glass, and they also remember the smooth patches of grass surrounding tall trees where they could play.

He was commemorated by the Trinidad water production sector when they formed the Farrell Pumping Station Credit Union Co-operative Society Ltd in 1958, which later became the COPOS Credit Union Co-operative Society Ltd of TT. COPOS still functions as a financial co-operative that is member-based and designed to provide financial and economic services to the community.
The fifth child of an Irish army officer and a half Carib girl from the Hazel family, Farrell was a brilliant student of Queen’s Royal College (QRC), winning the Island Scholarship twice. The first time he was 16 and it was found the scholarship could not be awarded to him as he was too young. The next year he came first again and chose to study engineering at Edinburgh University. On his return to Trinidad he worked for a short period as a land surveyor until he was appointed Port of Spain city engineer. He was the first local to hold that post.
While studying in Scotland, Charles Farrell became acquainted with a fellow Trinidadian who was also pursuing studies in Great Britain. She was Mary Marguerite Brunton, one of twin daughters born to the wealthy landowner in Diego Martin and Chaguanas, Nicholas Brunton and his wife Mary Langton.
On their return to Trinidad, the pair married in 1898 and their first son, Arthur, was born at River Estate in 1899. Six other sons followed, all of whom were A students at QRC and went on to become sterling sons of TT, contributing through their official careers and in the sporting arena to the development of this country.
Their first son, Arthur, a teacher, became acting head master at QRC and St George’s. QRC students of his era familiarly referred to him as “The Ghost” as a result of his practice to appear almost out of nowhere immaculately dressed all in white.
Reginald (Reggie), an engineer, followed in his father’s footsteps to also become the city engineer.
Edward (Dr Edward “Teddy” Farrell) became a dentist and is mentioned in a 1938 calypso, Darling Kimberlin, by The Tiger (Neville Marcano) among his preferred legal and medical practitioners.
Harry was appointed the city’s town clerk in 1941.
Patrick died young while still at QRC.
Frederick (my father, called Freddie) became sub-intendant of Crown Lands and Director of Surveys.
Francis (Frankie) became the supervisor of Elections and Boundaries.
We, the descendants of Charles Farrell, live in hope that his name will be attached to the renewed building, however it is to be used, and that some attention will be given to the man for his enormous work in the development of his country.
ROSEMARY (FARRELL) STONE
retired journalist

​The Caurita Stone is situated in the Caurita Hills of the Maracas Valley, Trinidad. The etchings are said to be 1,000 to 1,500 years old and is sacred to the Indigenous People of Trinidad and Tobago.
The height and width of the stone is roughly six feet by eight feet, and drawings have been etched into the top half of its exposed surface to the front. These drawings show faintly between the growing mosses that carpet the stone. Members of the Santa Rosa Carib community view this stone as having special spiritual significance and regard it as part of their natural heritage. Some of the etchings identified depict a chief, other people in ceremonial wear and a deer. Heads are seen on simple line drawn bodies, probably representing ancestors or other spirits or shamanistic phenomena.
The stone is now revered as a key point relative to the sacred “gateways” to Trinidad’s Original People: El Tucuche to the north, El Cerro del Aripo to the east, San Fernando Hill to the south and a mountain in Venezuela’s Paria peninsula to the west.
It is agreed among Amerindian communities in Trinidad that etchings on the stone bear spiritual significance. The site of the Caurita Stone is now regarded as an important part of the ongoing quest for knowledge and understanding of Amerindian ancestral occupation and life on this island.
Photograph Courtesy Bunty and Rory O'Connor.

Remember the time when small one door village parlours such as one in the photo were a common site ? Today the terminology "parlour" is still in use mostly in the countryside, but why the name " PARLOUR"and not village shop? 
"In the early 1950s many islanders were faced with the problem of not know­ing where their next meal would come from.One cop­ing strat­e­gy was to open a small "one-door" shop in the front premis­es of one's house. This could be in the porch or as a wood­en ex­ten­sion.
The state­room at the front of a house is com­mon­ly called a par­lour. Since these makeshift shops of­ten oc­cu­pied the afore­men­tioned space, the en­ter­pris­es them­selves be­came known as par­lours. Few, if any, Trinida­di­ans are aware that this was how these vi­tal com­mu­ni­ty es­tab­lish­ments came to be called thus.
The par­lour, in ur­ban and rur­al ar­eas, be­came a fo­cal point of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion where peo­ple, young and old, could meet and ex­change the lat­est gos­sip. Par­lours of yore were places where the fare was man­u­fac­tured al­most en­tire­ly by lo­cal hands and where sim­ple treats meant so much.
They were ten­u­ous busi­ness­es where tiny prof­it mar­gins made their pro­pri­etor­ship more a com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice than a get-rich-quick en­ter­prise.
For chil­dren of yes­ter­year, there could be few pleas­an­ter places. Large glass jars would be filled with sug­ar-coat­ed par­adise plums, kaisa balls, tangy tamarind balls, mo­lasses-drip­ping toolum, pink sug­ar cake and paw-paw balls.
A huge block of ice, de­liv­ered by a cart in the ear­ly morn­ing, would be rest­ing on a piece of sack­ing, swad­dled in straw to keep it from melt­ing too quick­ly. This ice, of course, would be vig­or­ous­ly shaved, rammed in­to a met­al cup and then cov­ered in sweet, red syrup for a pen­ny, and for an­oth­er cop­per, laced with con­densed milk to re­sult in that much-rel­ished treat, snow­ball.
Out­side of the city and in the coun­try­side, there were par­lours too, most­ly run by "ce­les­tials with pig-tails and thick-soled shoes grin­ning be­hind cedar coun­ters, among stores of Bryant's safe­ty match­es, Hunt­ley and Palmer's bis­cuits, and All­sopp's pale ale..." this ac­cord­ing to Charles Kings­ley, writ­ing in 1870 about a Chi­nese par­lour in the deep coun­try­side.
The coun­try par­lour of­ten was the oa­sis of rur­al trav­ellers, ac­cord­ing to one ac­count from 1914: "Restau­rants are rare in the West In­dies, ex­cept in the prin­ci­pal towns, but it is gen­er­al­ly pos­si­ble to ob­tain some­thing of a sim­ple kind, which on this oc­ca­sion con­sist­ed of that nice aer­at­ed drink called ko­la, to­geth­er with buns from a stall at the en­trance of the same shop."
So then, this is the ori­gin of the par­lour, a small-busi­ness mod­el which still thrives to­day
Source:  the Virtual Museum of Trinidad & Tobago, Jan 2019

TRINIDAD is shrinking. On every coast, the ocean is clawing at the land.
A dramatic example of this unstoppable force was the collapse in February of the cliff face in Cedros that consumed almost five acres of land on a peninsula that the experts say is losing as much as two metres of land every year.
But long before Cedros, coastal residents have been watching the sea with unease.
Coastline erosion is something that often happens imperceptibly slow, over hundreds, thousands of years. But people are seeing landforms reshaped in mere decades.
On Trinidad’s rocky north coast, village elders can tell of the stacks and arches, islets and caverns erased in short years, of sand beaches swept away to reveal long buried rock formations, and of seafront homes undermined and lost to a conspiracy of wind, waves, currents, tides and a rising sea level linked to global warming, melting the ice caps and glaciers.
On the island’s east coast, the roads to the old cocoa plantations and beaches in North Manzanilla now end abruptly at precipices, and the sea takes chunks of fertile land with every high tide.
The bathing beaches between Manzanilla and Guayaguayare are losing the coconut trees and seawalls. Tidal surges have made brackish swampland out of cropland. Beachfront home owners spend a fortune protecting their investment, defending with boulders, tyre revetments, tree trunk groynes, rock cages and concrete embankments. The Atlantic always wins, in the end.
In the natural harbour that is the west coast, the battering swells in the Gulf of Paria have been taking back the land reclaimed along the King’s Wharf, San Fernando, at Waterloo’s cremation site and the Temple in the Sea, and overtopping the Mosquito Creek road with increasing frequency. The Shore of Peace Cremation Site would have been lost if not for a $60 million coastal stabilisation, that also stopped the advance of the sea in the Cocal, Manzanilla.
But nowhere is the evidence of Trinidad’s losing battle more striking than on the south coast with its retreating clay and sandstone cliffs. Here is it recorded that up to twelve metres of land have eroded in a single year in areas between Los Iros and Quinam Bay- the location of south Trinidad’s most visited beach, which no longer exists.


A similar rate of erosion has taken place along Moruga’s south coastline where at the once popular La Retraite Beach, a visitor must descend a cliff to get to the shore.
Moruga is also where you will find more worrisome evidence of what is happening - concrete abutments of flood gates and fishing boat landings now sitting out at sea, the staircases of houses embedded in the sand littered with uprooted forest trees and bamboo groves.
At Gran Chemin, Moruga’s main village, the St Peter’s statue erected by custodian of the area’s history Eric Lewis, is now threatened. Its foundation is being licked by the waves finishing off the nearby fisherman shacks and derelict port facility.
But it is this very coastline destruction in Moruga that has revealed a piece of Trinidad’s history buried for so long that, when the waves exposed it some weeks ago, few knew what it was.
Its presence was brought to our attention by Moruga building contractor and community activist Loretto Miguel who himself wanted to know what the thing was, and whether the State had a plan to stop to damage being done to the fishing facility.
If you visit the village coastline at low tide, you will find a thick metal cable emerging from the muddy sea, snaking along the sand, and disappearing into the land near the Moruga Roman Catholic Church.
That telegraph submarine cable has been there since 1871, and when it came, it surely changed the course of Trinidad's history.
Before its arrival, Trinidad’s only means of communication with the world was by mail. The telephone was not yet invented. A letter to Europe went by ship and a reply would take months.
That is, until the invention of the electric telegraph in the 1850s, when morse code could be transmitted through copper wires over long distances in order to communicate by telegram.
This would lead, after many failures, to the development and laying of a transatlantic submarine cable in 1858 connecting the United Kingdom with North America, considered one of the great feats of the time.
"It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle" US President James Buchanan messaged Queen Victoria in the first telegram to be exchanged in 1858.
The telegraph cable network would expand to include a connection to Cuba, Panama, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, St Thomas, St Kitts, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Demerara (now part of Guyana). It is that Trinidad to South America cable connection that has been exposed in Moruga.
In the journal of chief engineer and electrician Sir Charles Tilston Bright, the man who oversaw the laying of the cable system for the West India and Panama Telegraph Company, his visit to Moruga examines the proposed landing site is reported as September 9, 1871.
Within months of his visit, the island was connected, with it being recorded: “At Trinidad, the Demerara cable was landed at the south-east corner of the island; while the continuing section northwards to Grenada was taken from Macqueripe Bay. The connection to Port of Spain (the capital) on the west side, was made by means of a long land-line A great part of this was erected through dense forest of more than fifty miles, which had to be cleared by a small army of wood cutters for a width of at least forty feet, for a considerable distance”.
By 1910, the major countries of the world were connected, and messages that took months to send, could be transmitted in mere minutes.
What can be seen in Moruga is part of the thicker section specially designed to withstand the surf at landing sites – a cable with a core of seven copper conductor wires insulated with a type of natural latex called Gutta Percha, bound by an outer layer of steel, and encased in silica and tar, weighing sixteen tonnes to a mile.
In all, 4,200 miles of cable was laid by the West India and Panama Telegraph Company, which would come to be known as Cable and Wireless. 
Source:  The Daily Express, Jan 2019

Dominic Kalipersad
November 22 at 6:45 PM
The town we call Sangre Grande came into being because of the railway.
The name was imposed on an older village called Cunapo which virtually disappeared after the railway system was extended from Arima in August 1897.
According to historian Michael Anthony in his book “Towns and Villages", although the signboard said ‘Sangre Grande Railway Station,' the train in fact stopped at Cunapo. Sangre Grande village was on a hill about two miles east of Cunapo.
With the advent of the railway, people moved to Cunapo to be near to the trains. And so the old Sangre Grande died and Cunapo came to be called Sangre Grande.
Ironically, the name Sangre Grande existed long before this period.
It came about in the late 1770s when Spanish surveyors were charting the island. They found that the water of the larger tributary of the Oropouche River was red as blood, and gave it the Spanish name Sangre Grande, which translates in English to mean Big Blood.
Now, Sangre Grande has grown into the largest town in northeastern Trinidad, with a population exceeding 20,000.
The name Cunapo (Carib word meaning 'red mangrove') is virtually gone, although some people still refer to Sangre Grande by that name, and some institutions still carry Cunapo in their name.
The Trinidad Government Railway system ceased in December 1968.

The original purpose of the Royal Botanic Gardens was not for taking wedding pictures and having family outings.
Although the space was open to the public, it was a scientific area for the sole purpose of benefiting the people of Trinidad.
Historian Gerard Besson told Sunday Newsday the Royal Botanic Gardens was created in 1818 by Sir Ralph Woodford, who was the Governor of Trinidad from 1813 to 1829. He was the first civil governor with all his predecessors being military men.


“He was concerned with developing the island. So he brought with him a group of young people, like himself, who had an interest in modern times, modern for those days, and was interested in the overall development of the place.”
One of those men was botanist David Lockhart, who was appointed as first superintendent and was responsible for the layout of the gardens.
With the government’s money, Woodford bought a 200-acre estate from Henri Peschier of St Ann’s for £9,160 which was a substantial amount of money at the time. Those 200 acres included the land that is now the Queen’s Park Savannah and the Botanic Gardens.


He cleared the area of forest leaving some local plants, made the area now known as the Savannah into a public space, and began laying out a botanic garden. Lockhart, under Woodford, started importing rare trees and plants from all over the world including India, Africa, the far east, other tropical areas.


“He (Woodford) was creating a botanical environment. He was creating a park where the people of the town, because it was not yet a city, would be able to enjoy the scenery, the rolling lawns, and would be able to enjoy seeing strange, exotic trees from different parts of the world that would have fruits and flowers–a different kind of environment. From all accounts it was a great success from the very beginning.”
Besson explained that the gardens was a place where rare plants and trees were brought to see if they would thrive and could be propagated in this part of the world for industry and agriculture. They were brought with a purpose–to be cultivated so cuttings could be procured and transferred to the various estates on the island for valuable timber and food.
He said the samaan trees were brought to provide shade and comfortable grazing for cattle so they could produce more milk. In fact, he said there were so many samaan trees in St Clair because the whole area, from around Wildflower Park in St Clair to Tragarete Road, was pasture land called the Government Farm, where many cattle grazed.
Breadfruit in the gardens
The first breadfruit tree in Trinidad was also planted at the gardens. It was brought from an island in the Pacific because poor people needed food and breadfruit was filling and healthy. “Woodford made a lot of advancements. He did a lot of things that really made a very big difference to the overall environment.”


He said over time, the Botanic Gardens was integrated into the work of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA), the forerunner to the University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus. The ICTA created a herbarium where it kept a record of all the species of the different plants and trees in Trinidad, both local and imported. “The very economy of Trinidad in the days before the exploration of oil was based on agriculture so it was very important to have, in Trinidad, an experimental station like the Botanic Gardens. And it was very important to have a college of agriculture, which became, over time, the university where agriculture would be studied, experimented with, and treated as a science. So the connection between the university and the Botanic Gardens was once a very strong, living connection.”
According to information from the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries, after the death of Lockhart in 1845, there were several others who contributed to the uniqueness of the gardens. These included William Purdie from 1846 to 1857, Dr Herman Kruegar, a trained apothecary, and Henry Prestoe from 1864 to 1886.


The rise of tropical agriculture
From 1878 to 1879, the gardens expanded with purchase of St Clair Estate and there was an increased collection of ornamental plants obtained from Kew and other parts of the world. Many new plants and crops of potential economic value were also introduced, distributed and exchanged throughout the world including cocoa, coffee, tea, mango, mangosteen, palms, varieties of sugar, rubber, and more.
During John Hart’s appointment to superintendent from 1888 to 1908 there was a renewed search for alternative cash crops for the colony, including spices, ginger, tobacco, citrus and various types of timber.
The ministry document stated, “In 1897, The Norman Commission defined the role of the Botanic Gardens: The introduction and experimental cultivation of economic plants to secure improved varieties of such plants, and especially of sugar cane. It should comprise a branch for the teaching of tropical agriculture, and should form a centre from which teachers would be sent to give practical lessons in the cultivation of tropical plants and the selection of suitable locations for growing them…In the mean time the Botanical Department in Trinidad should encourage the introduction and growth of the better descriptions of fruit, and give instructions as to the best means of cultivation and packing fruit for export.”
Over the years, however, things changed.
Besson noted that trees that were over 200-years-old were cut down for various reasons, including that some were rotting. However, he said they were not replaced with other exotic trees but with “common” plants like crotons and bougainvillea.
“So the idea of keeping it as a place where you would bring a rare tree from a distant place and plant it has gone. It seems the people who look after it today don’t have those ideas in mind. They just want to keep it as a park rather than a scientific place.”


One of the oldest botanic gardens
Speaking at the official postal stamp launch in commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of the Royal Botanic Gardens on December 6, Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat said we were living in a society where many people lacked foresight and were “not even planning for the next two years, let alone, 200.”
He said, “The Royal Botanic Gardens has a tremendous history but perhaps the most important thing we can do in its 200th year is to reflect on those persons who had the foresight to make an investment into the future. What we enjoy today at the Royal Botanic Gardens is the result of an investment in attitudes and I commend those who have been involved in it and who have created something which we can all enjoy.”
Not only enjoy, but be proud of.
According to the ministry, the Royal Botanic Gardens is one of the oldest botanic gardens in continuous operation in the western hemisphere. It occupies 61.8 acres (25 hectares) and has assortment of over 600 plants–approximately 13 per cent indigenous to Trinidad and 87 per cent from every continent of the world.
In addition to the plants, the gardens, located north of the Queen’s Park Savannah, has a small cemetery, known as God Acre. There, several British government and military officials and their families are buried. The last person to be buried there was Lady Thelma Hochoy, wife of the first Governor General of TT, in 2010. She was buried next to her husband, Sir Solomon Hochoy.
The Botanic Gardens are open to the public daily from 6 am to 6 pm.
Source:  Newsday Dec 2018

Friends, family, the musical fraternity and the country at large are mourning the passing of yet another musical icon, Dr Andrew Marcano, aka Lord Superior, fondly known by friends and family as 'Supie'.
Superior passed away on November 24, 2018 in New York, after ailing for some time.
TUCO Trinidad and Tobago issued a statement on Sunday, hailing Marcano's musical genius and passionate spirit.
"For the third time in less than a month, the calypso fraternity is plunged into mourning another calypso icon, with the death of Dr Andrew Marcano, also known in the calypso Industry as Brother Superior who passed away on Saturday 24th November 2018, after ailing for some time now."
"Supie as he was fondly called, was one of those special bards who advocated for years, that there should be more calypso played on local radio stations to the point that he laboured for over twenty years until he was afforded a radio license from the government."
"He called his station Superior Radio and was one in those days that played calypso music twenty-four hours each day," the statement said
Dr Marcano was known for always being impeccably dressed. 
"One of the bards who was always dressed to kill as we say in T&T, he will be remembered for the life of our cultural history."
"On behalf of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation, once again the President Mr Lutalo Masimba and his General Council along with the entire TUCO membership, we sincerely extend our deepest condolences to his immediate family around the world and here in T&T."
"May the soul of the late Dr Andrew Marcano aka The Brother Superior rest in peace with our calypso ancestors. Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming as they are received by TUCO," the statement said. 
Friends, family, the musical fraternity and the country at large are mourning the passing of yet another musical icon, Dr Andrew Marcano, aka Lord Superior, fondly known by friends and family as 'Supie'.
Superior passed away on November 24, 2018 in New York, after ailing for some time.
TUCO Trinidad and Tobago issued a statement on Sunday, hailing Marcano's musical genius and passionate spirit.
"For the third time in less than a month, the calypso fraternity is plunged into mourning another calypso icon, with the death of Dr Andrew Marcano, also known in the calypso Industry as Brother Superior who passed away on Saturday 24th November 2018, after ailing for some time now."
"Supie as he was fondly called, was one of those special bards who advocated for years, that there should be more calypso played on local radio stations to the point that he laboured for over twenty years until he was afforded a radio license from the government."
"He called his station Superior Radio and was one in those days that played calypso music twenty-four hours each day," the statement said
Dr Marcano was known for always being impeccably dressed. 
"One of the bards who was always dressed to kill as we say in T&T, he will be remembered for the life of our cultural history."
"On behalf of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation, once again the President Mr Lutalo Masimba and his General Council along with the entire TUCO membership, we sincerely extend our deepest condolences to his immediate family around the world and here in T&T."
"May the soul of the late Dr Andrew Marcano aka The Brother Superior rest in peace with our calypso ancestors. Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming as they are received by TUCO," the statement said. 
His son, Moriba Marcano, said in a social media post that the calypso icon was a visionary of his time.
"RIP Dr Andrew 'Lord Superior' Marcano, my dad just passed in NY, one of his favourite places in the world, where he was set to be a star in the 1960's before deciding to return to Trinidad in an attempt to assist the burgeoning nation in forming its cultural identity."
"He was a great man and a visionary of his time writing songs to help guide humanity in general and his people in specific. Sadly misunderstood and underappreciated, I studied the man like a text book and I only hope that his genius and goodwill will be more easily recognized in the afterlife. I loved you dad," he said.
Actor Michael Cherrie also issued his condolences:
“Remembering Andrew Marcano - Lord Superior RIP... calypso great...make new and wonderful vibrations in that new realm...my deepest condolences to you, Moriba Marcano...Godspeed Supie...”
Jazz musician Etienne Charles issued his condolences via social media:
"Dr. Andrew Marcano aka Brother Superior aka Lord Superior aka Supie. the consummate Gentleman, class act, pillar of knowledge, guiding counselor and boss calypsonian. Thanks for your friendship, musicianship and clever wit. I'll say your name forever.  my heart and condolences go out to your family and loved ones," he said. 
Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries, Clarence Rambharat, also acknowledged Dr Marcano's monumental contribution to local culture. 
"Dr Andrew Marcano - Rio Claro’s Lord Superior has gone. So much remains to be told- seeing the greats at Crown Theatre and the train as Rio Claro’s connection to the best artistes of the day; living with Spoiler; campaigning for local content in the airwaves and completing more than 60 years in calypso," he said. 
Dr Marcano was born in Rio Claro in 1938 and made his debut into calypso at the age of 16 singing a calypso called "Coconut" at the Victory Calypso Tent in Port of Spain. In those days he was considered to be the youngest Calypsonian to perform locally.
Some of his memorable calypsoes were, Spread Joy, San Fernando Carnival, Saga T'ing, We want a day, Standardise Pan, Cultural Assassination and Put the women on top.
He was awarded the Hummingbird medal Silver in 2015 and received his Honourary Doctor of Letters at the 2017 graduation ceremony at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad.
He was considered to be the first calypsonian to produce a record on his own record label, the first to Perform at the Madison Square Gardens, in New York, USA, and the first to produce a full-length calypso musical.
He would have celebrated his 81st birthday next month.
"Rest in peace Bro Superior. You truly did it your way," said TUCO.

A few weeks ago, the coun­try lost one of its most valu­able ar­chi­tec­tur­al trea­sures. For gen­er­a­tions, the mag­nif­i­cent Friend­ship Hall Great House stood astride the South­ern Main Road, just north of St Mary's Junc­tion in Freeport and re­mind­ed us of an era long gone.
Not on­ly was the struc­ture im­pos­ing in its sheer size, but al­so for its ec­cen­tric style and the sto­ry it bore. Con­struct­ed in the 19th cen­tu­ry, it was ini­tial­ly a prime ex­am­ple of colo­nial plan­toc­ra­cy ar­chi­tec­ture which far out­shone the less sub­stan­tial planters' res­i­dences which dot­ted the sug­ar cane fields of cen­tral Trinidad.
Its own­er was an ec­cen­tric Scots­man named Nor­man McLeod who had served as an of­fi­cer in the British East In­di­an Reg­i­ment in the ear­ly 1900s. Whilst in In­dia he ap­par­ent­ly un­der­went a con­ver­sion to Hin­duism and up­on his re­turn to Trinidad he em­ployed his con­sid­er­able artis­tic abil­i­ty in trans­form­ing his pala­tial home in­to a mandir.
On the ground floor, the god­dess Dur­ga peered forth, while on the sweep­ing por­ti­co, McLeod placed a self-por­trait, wear­ing a tur­ban. He even con­struct­ed a throne with the words "Friend­ship Hall" above it. The Scots­man filled his home with price­less trea­sures rang­ing from a World War I Ger­man bu­gle to in­valu­able sil­ver from In­dia.
Gripped with a grow­ing delu­sion that the young daugh­ter of one of his In­di­an ser­vants was a rein­car­na­tion of his dead moth­er, McLeod willed his man­sion to them when he died in 1965. We live how­ev­er, in a na­tion where all but a few place no val­ue on the lega­cy of the ages. Friend­ship Hall fell in­to ne­glect and af­ter near­ly five decades of de­cay, was bull­dozed in­to the ground to make way for con­crete blas­phemies which are a sad trav­es­ty of the Scots­man's gift to his heirs.
As ap­palling as this as­sault on our built her­itage is to con­ceive, it is but a sin­gle chap­ter in a long his­to­ry of an­ni­hi­la­tion which can­not be blamed on any one per­son or sec­tor, since it is a rep­re­hen­si­ble bur­den we must all bear as a peo­ple. The ba­sic ar­gu­ment which may be prof­fered for the fate of Friend­ship Hall is that with­out le­git­i­mate state sup­port, this is to be the fu­ture of many of our his­toric struc­tures which ex­ist in pri­vate hands which are ei­ther un­ap­pre­cia­tive of their sig­nif­i­cance or can­not af­ford to sus­tain them.
Part of the prob­lem stems from a scarci­ty of com­pas­sion and pub­lic ed­i­fi­ca­tion re­gard­ing the val­ue of her­itage as­sets. There are now two min­istries ded­i­cat­ed to mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and tol­er­ance, yet noth­ing has been done to in­cul­cate a sense of na­tion­al pride in our past.
Stu­dents are still taught that Colum­bus sight­ed Trinidad from the helm of the San­ta Maria ac­com­pa­nied by the Ni­na and Pin­ta, even though he was bare­ly able to walk from a smart at­tack of gout and all three ships had been sunk years be­fore. I dare say if the own­er of Friend­ship Hall Great House had pos­sessed a cul­tured ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what was gift­ed in­to his care, it would not have been de­stroyed. The whole­sale slaugh­ter of leatherback tur­tles but a cou­ple decades ago has been all but halt­ed, thanks large­ly to the foun­da­tion of a sense of own­er­ship which was in­stilled in the minds and hearts of those who shared a com­mon breath­ing space with the tur­tles.
Most com­mu­ni­ties in pos­ses­sion of her­itage as­sets can­not see the eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties which can arise from these trea­sures. This is an­oth­er page we can take from the book of the leatherback tur­tle sto­ry, since tur­tle-watch­ing is now a lu­cra­tive mon­ey-earn­er for sev­er­al sec­tors, spawn­ing down­stream in­dus­try on a mi­cro-eco­nom­ic scale.
Lest it be said that I lam­bast the State too stern­ly, an ex­am­ple must be drawn from the aw­ful con­di­tion of the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en. These turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry mas­ter­pieces ap­pear in vir­tu­al­ly every tourist guide­book which beck­ons the un­sus­pect­ing to view a spec­ta­cle which must sure­ly stand as an in­dict­ment against us.
From the board­ed-up win­dows and un­kempt lawns of Mille Fleurs to the thread­bare grandeur of White­hall, suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions have glee­ful­ly ig­nored their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to his­to­ry. Those few pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions ded­i­cat­ed to con­ser­va­tion have con­sis­tent­ly failed in their man­dates and seem quite hap­py to con­tin­ue on their los­ing streaks while our past is tram­pled and lost.
I re­cent­ly vis­it­ed the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and it pains me ex­ceed­ing­ly to see the vast po­ten­tial for pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion there­in and the de­fi­cien­cy of in­ter­est which is shown in it. The prover­bial ic­ing on the cake in the vis­it was that in one sec­tion, arte­facts were strewn willy-nil­ly with no se­cu­ri­ty, beg­ging the sou­venir hunter to pock­et one of our na­tion­al trea­sures.
There is a Restora­tion Unit with­in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture. Had I not been aware of its pres­ence, I would be as stunned as most peo­ple would be to learn that such a high-mind­ed de­part­ment could ex­ist with­in the wreck­age of our civ­il ser­vice. One on­ly has to look at our com­mu­nal ar­chi­tec­tur­al trea­sures to see the im­pact of the unit on the land­scape: the still-caved roof of Pres­i­dent's House, the fire-gut­ted shell of what used to be the his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion and the sapling which threat­ened to grow in­to a mighty tree from the roof of the now dis­mal­ly aban­doned Red House.
The lack of zeal or even pe­ri­od­ic en­thu­si­asm from the pub­lic sec­tor to­wards preser­va­tion is re­al­ly an ex­trap­o­la­tion of a na­tion­al men­tal­i­ty which frowns on the past. Our own first prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, was, most iron­i­cal­ly, a his­to­ri­an. Even more than three decades af­ter his death, the ef­fects of "doc­tor pol­i­tics" still shape the gen­er­al psy­che of the na­tion, where­in he trans­ferred his in­ner demons of his own ex­clu­sion from colo­nial elite so­ci­ety to his peo­ple, teach­ing us that all that was con­nect­ed to mas­sa was bad and should be oblit­er­at­ed if we were to find our­selves.
In this way, we in­dem­ni­fy the Plan­ta­tion So­ci­ety mod­el of the late, great Lloyd Best, since our idea of na­tion­al­ism finds ex­pres­sion in rag­ing against the Eu­ro­pean metro­pole and its relics by ex­ten­sion. We are a plur­al so­ci­ety thrown in­to each oth­er's com­pa­ny with no re­al for­ma­tion of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a na­tion.
Yet, amid the morass of de­struc­tion and cal­lous ig­no­rance, there are bea­cons of hope. For many years, a small band of ded­i­cat­ed peo­ple call­ing them­selves Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion has been striv­ing against enor­mous odds (po­lit­i­cal ob­sta­cles be­ing the most fre­quent) to raise the na­tion­al con­scious­ness of our her­itage and to per­suade the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties of each ad­min­is­tra­tion to take a vest­ed in­ter­est in preser­va­tion lest all be lost too soon.
I doubt any of the mem­bers of Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion throw a good javelin or sing melo­di­ous rum-drink­ing dit­ties, but this is an or­gan­i­sa­tion which tru­ly de­serves a medal for the tire­less com­mit­ment to his­to­ry of its mem­bers. Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion stal­wart ar­chi­tect Ge­of­frey MacLean has de­vot­ed a life­time to con­ser­va­tion and sin­gle­hand­ed­ly re­dis­cov­ered our great 19th-cen­tu­ry artist Michel Jean Caz­abon and his works.
On­ly re­cent­ly Ge­of­frey and I were be­wail­ing the fact that dur­ing the 1970s and well in­to the 1990s, most of our ar­chi­tec­tur­al her­itage had been de­stroyed in the name of progress. Called to mind were the de­mo­li­tion of Bagshot and Per­se­ver­ance Hous­es in Mar­aval, the Ice House Ho­tel on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, and the old Cus­toms House on the wa­ter­front. The loss to pos­ter­i­ty has tru­ly been im­mense. Our most cur­rent di­a­logue on the demise of Friend­ship Hall Great House had a tone akin to that of lament­ing the demise of an old friend.
There is on­ly so much that can be done by those of us who have spent our lives in fer­ret­ing out for­got­ten his­to­ry and cop­ing with the ever-ex­pand­ing waste­land which our her­itage land­scape has be­come. Gov­ern­ment malaise, ig­no­rance of the gen­er­al cit­i­zen­ry and cor­po­rate greed have com­bined to form a daunt­ing front against con­ser­va­tion and as long as we see no val­ue to cher­ish­ing the lega­cy of our an­ces­tors, we face a very grim fu­ture, for it is from the glo­ries and teach­ings of the past we must draw on to find in­spi­ra­tion for to­mor­row. If this is in­deed our lot, where then can fu­ture gen­er­a­tions turn to find them­selves?
Source:  Virtual Museum of T&T Archives (Sept. 08 2012)