How many of us older folks remember wearing " washykong" ( washeekongs) sneakers back in the 50s and 60s?
Sneakers or washeekong were flat walking shoe with a canvas upper, circled with a band of rubber , fastened with cotton laces and vulcanized rubber sole.
One theory as to origin of name washeekong is that it is a TRINI word. The theory suggest word "Qigong” is of Chinese origin maybe :perhaps Mandarin origin. " Qigong” is pronounced chee-gong" .
Our locals kids had to be reminded to wash them regularly to keep them clean, hence the origin of the word 'wash chee gong' then finally: *washykongs/washeekong *
According to French Creole Dictionary these shoes were referred to as crepe soles .The French term, crêpe, derives from the Latin crispa, meaning with "creases" , Crepe sole referred to shoes made with crepe rubber. Crepe rubber according to the English Dictionary is coagulated latex that is rolled out in crinkled sheets and commonly used to make soles for shoes
How many remembered having to wash their washeekongs ( as they were referred to in Trinidad) , put them out to dry in the sun and use whitening bought in Bata stores to get the canvas lily white?
This vintage Ad ( courtesy Ricardo Rambally ) was taken from,1943 year book. Note unusual spelling of the word.
Imagine in those day a pair of washeekongs was only $1.43.
(Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh's Virtual Museum of T&T, July 12, 2023)

​f you're a national of Trinidad and Tobago or you were raised by parents who are from the twin-island Republic, there are some sayings that you may have heard countless times in your formative years.
Take a brief journey down memory lane with these idioms and there meanings.

• I make you, I will take you out.

Many of us grew up hearing this threat. It means I gave birth to you and I'm not afraid to end you.

• Stick break in yuh ears?

Usually said to a child/children who is being disobedient. 

• Friend does carry yuh, they doh bring you back

An admonition to children so they won't fall prey to peer pressure.

• Yuh bladder close to yuh eye?

Admittedly, I've only ever heard this in south Trinidad. In each instance, it was said to a child who was crying.

• Long rope for magga goat.

Too much freedom could have catastrophic consequences.

• Gopaul luck aint Seepaul luck

What works for someone else won't necessarily work for you. Everyone won't get the same opportunities or chances.

• Goat doh make sheep.

Usually said in reference to a child who is displaying characteristics reminiscent of one of his/her parents.

• Yuh monkey gland raise?

Usually said in reference to someone is acting up or behaving wildly.

• All skin teeth aint laugh.

Not all smiles are genuine; not everyone who appears friendly may have your best interests at heart.

• Who don't hear, will feel.

If you disobey now prepare to deal with the consequences later.

• Monkey know which tree to climb.

People know who they will get away with disrespecting.

• See me and come live with me is two different things.

You can never truly know a person until you've lived with them.
(Source: The Loop, March 23, 2023)

I have to admit it is scary watching these young men push the coconut into the machines with their hands! 

Trinidad-born British actress Jacqui Chan is caught turning the heads of uniformed passers-by in this impromptu photo taken in Venice in 1956 by Antony Armstrong-Jones (later Lord Snowdon), the British socialite photographer who eventually married Queen Elizabeth II's sister.
Chan was also a photographic model and, at the time, was Armstrong-Jones's girlfriend. She is thought to have been his first love.
Chan had met him in March of 1955, when the 25-year-old photographer took the then-18-year old dancer’s portrait, when she was starring in the play 'Teahouse of the August Moon'.
Armstrong-Jones, however, went on to marry Britain’s Princess Margaret in 1960 during the time of his relationship with Chan.
When Chan heard the news of her former lover's engagement to the Princess, she reportedly said, "Well, I hope she can cope better than I could."
In an interview with The Australian Women's Weekly in February 1961, Chan wanted to make it clear that she had her own success apart from her relationship with Armstrong-Jones.
“I do not owe my career to all that sort of publicity," she said. "The suggestion that I had never been offered a job until all this business is what makes me so mad. It just isn't true."
Indeed, Chan has had a long and varied career, both as a dancer on stage and an actress on the silver screen.
She rose to fame thanks to her turn as Gwennie Lee in a 1959 West End stage production of 'The World of Suzie Wong'.
During the 1960s, she had roles in several television series including 'Dixon of Dock Green', 'The Hidden Truth', 'Armchair Theatre', and 'Ghost Squad'.
She played the handmaiden Lotus in the 1963 film 'Cleopatra' that starred Elizabeth Taylor.
Some of her notable works include the role of Mrs Liu in "Moving Parts" (2017); 'Sherlock' (2012); Mutant Chronicles (2008); Wake of Death (2004); and Netflix drama 'Marco Polo'.
Born in 1939, Chan, cousin of famed Trinidadian painter Carlisle Chan, continues to fetch TV and film roles, and has been visiting Trinidad over the years.
(Source:  Dominic Kalipersad, may 19, 2022)

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THE Observer newspaper of the UK said on Sunday that a British publisher, Penguin, has finally published Capitalism and Slavery written by Trinidad and Tobago's first prime minister, the late Dr Eric Williams.
An article by journalist Donna Ferguson was headlined, “Eighty years late: groundbreaking work on slave economy is finally published in UK. Seminal work by scholar and future politician Eric Williams, shunned for decades, is issued by mainstream imprint.”
The work was, so far, published only by the University of North Carolina (UNC) Press in 1944, with a third edition last April.
Penguin said its edition will be available from February 22. It said, "Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision.
"Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress."
Ferguson said, "In 1938, a brilliant young black scholar at Oxford University wrote a thesis on the economic history of British empire and challenged a claim about slavery that had been defining Britain’s role in the world for more than a century.
"But when Eric Williams, who would later become the first prime minister of TT, sought to publish his mind-blowing thesis on capitalism and slavery in Britain, he was shunned by publishers and accused of undermining the humanitarian motivation for Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act.
"Now, 84 years after his work was rejected in the UK, and 78 years after it was first published in America, where it became a highly influential anti-colonial text, Williams’s book, Capitalism and Slavery, will finally be published in Britain by a mainstream British publisher."
She quoted writer Sathnam Sanghera saying, “I think it’s amazing he hasn’t been published until now, because you can’t really make sense of Britain’s involvement in transatlantic slavery without reading his book. It’s so important.” The article said Williams had argued that British slavery was abolished owing to British economic self-interest, not British conscience.
Ferguson said Williams said the Industrial Revolution could not have happened without slavery.
"In great detail, he lays out the scale of the wealth and industry that was created in Britain, not just from the slave plantations and in the sugar refineries and cotton mills, but by building and insuring slave ships, manufacturing goods transported to the colonies – including guns, manacles, chains and padlocks – and then banking and reinvesting the profits.
"It was all this wealth created by slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries that powered the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, Williams argued."
She cited Williams as saying, “A racial twist has been given to what is basically an economic phenomenon. Slavery was not born of racism; Rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.”
Ferguson said Williams was rejected by even the 1930s most radical publisher Frederic Warburg, publisher of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. Warburg's rejection of the book was because it contradicted the British narrative that abolition was due to humanitarian, not economic reasons, Ferguson said.
She cited Prof Kehinde Andrews of Birmingham City University as complaining that many British academics today disbelieve the Industrial Revolution was dependent on slavery and so dismiss Williams's book.
“It is good that the book’s being published by a major publisher, but it’s kind of an indictment that it has taken more than 80 years,” said Andrews.
“I hope people read it, and it’s nice it’s available. But I think it will probably just get ignored in Britain, the way it has been, largely, in the past.”
(Source:  TT Newday, January 24, 2022)