It was late in April of 1979, when a poor, lone­ly and sad­dened man sat in his lit­tle, wood­en gallery in St Croix Road, Princes Town. Al­most in tears and fail­ing sight, he re­called the 45-year pi­o­neer­ing strug­gle in the mak­ing and per­fect­ing of the dou­bles, a na­tion­al food. He was known as Singh, the dou­bles man, one of the sev­er­al pi­o­neers in Princes Town.
Singh grew up in a lit­tle bar­rack room in Trans­port, Princes Town. He be­came ac­quaint­ed with Chote, Dean and As­ga Ali of Fair­field Sug­ar Cane Es­tate in Craig­nish, who were al­so pi­o­neer mak­ers and ven­dors of bar­ra and chut­ney, kur­ma, pholourie, chan­na and oth­er In­di­an del­i­ca­cies. Chote re­lat­ed how he ac­quired his art from his in­den­tured grand­fa­ther in the bar­rack at the Mal­gretoute Cane Es­tate.
Singh agreed that he learned a few things about mak­ing and sell­ing some of those del­i­ca­cies from his as­so­ciates. As a young man, he de­cid­ed to go in­to busi­ness, and so, he filled his bas­ket and set up at the Princes Town Tri­an­gle to of­fer his del­i­ca­cies. Hope­ful­ly, and in good spir­its, he shout­ed, "Get yuh bar­rah and chut­ney! Chan­nah! Chan­nah! Chan­nah! Wet (cur­ried) chan­nah o’ dry (fried) chan­nah!"
As he con­tin­ued his sell­ing at the Tri­an­gle one day, an aged woman named Doo Doo Dar­lin tast­ed his bar­ra and chut­ney. She sucked her teeth in pity and shak­ing her head, "No!" she told Singh,"Yuh cyah mek bar­rah yet mih son. De edge ah de bar­rah too hard. Dorg self cyah eat dat." The fol­low­ing day, the woman went to Singh’s bar­rack, and with great care, she taught him the cor­rect method of mak­ing what she con­sid­ered to be good orig­i­nal bar­ra. From then, there was no turn­ing back for Singh. When the roost­er crew at four o’clock, dawn, Singh and his wife, Sookya, were up and prepar­ing the del­i­ca­cies for the day’s sale. Af­ter much labour and sac­ri­fice, Singh and Sookya had saved enough mon­ey to pur­chase a freight bi­cy­cle. It was then that he was able to move with much ease and to of­fer his ed­i­bles to a wider mar­ket
He had the grit and de­ter­mi­na­tion to sell and so, he fo­cused on be­ing an it­er­ant bar­ra man. He jour­neyed to neigh­bour­ing vil­lages on spe­cial func­tions and fes­ti­vals. He cy­cled to Cedar Hill dai­ly dur­ing the Ram­leela Fes­ti­val, to near­by Craig­nish dur­ing Hosay (Ho­sein) cel­e­bra­tion. He jour­neyed many miles to Bar­rack­pore, Debe and Pe­nal dur­ing the Phag­wa fes­ti­vals, al­so at Union Park in Mara­bel­la dur­ing the grand East­er horse rac­ing events. The tire­less bar­ra man Singh sold his prod­ucts to vil­lagers at the Willians­ville Rail­way Sta­tion, when horse-drawn bug­gies plied for hire to White­lands, Mayo and Guaracara vil­lages.
Comb­ing his fin­gers though his short, grey hair, a smile played on his lips. Singh, with a mea­sure of laugh in his voice, re­called, "Boy, some­time dur­ing the World war 11 in 1940, dey had big cock fight in Re­be­ca-Rich­mond Road, near Tabaquite down so. Ah pack up mih bike wid cur­ry chan­nah, bar­rah and hot man­go chut­ney and Ah ride off soon morn­ing un­til ah reach. Boy dat was pres­sure. Well, ah push dong mih bike trough de bush track right dong to de gayelle. Boy dat was cock fight foh so! All kin­da bigshot man in de bam­boo patch and dey game-cock fight­in’ an’ mon­ey on­ly fly­in’ as dey drinkin’ moun­tain dew like wa­ter. Well, ah sell­in’ mih stuff good, good, when ah man bawl out, 'Po­lice! Po­lice!' Boy! Man run­nin’ like ‘gouti through de bush. I run an hide in de bush too. A! A! When ah come back to mih bike all mih bar­rah an’ chut­ney gorn. Mih chan­nah tin emp­ty! Like dorg lick it!" At that point his voice dipped in­to a sob­bing tremor, his eyes turned moi­sed as he looked down to the floor. He choked, "On­ly Gawd know how..."
From that ex­cit­ing day, Singh dis­con­tin­ued his sales trip to cock fight­ing gayelles and whey whey turfs. He set­tled back to the Princes Town Tri­an­gle, and some­times at the Fair­field Junc­tion in Craig­nish, along­side Chote and Dean.
As the World War con­tin­ued, the bar­ra busi­ness suf­fered from short­ages of re­lat­ed in­gre­di­ents in­clud­ing flour and cook­ing oil. Singh heard of a Chi­nese shop­keep­er in Ma­yaro, who had a hoard of cook­ing oil. Ear­ly one morn­ing, he rode off on his freight bi­cy­cle to that des­ti­na­tion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 36 miles plus, to the Chi­nese shop, where he bought a four-gal­lon tin of the cook­ing oil, and rode back to his bar­rack in Princes Town. Many times af­ter, he trav­elled by the TGR (Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­ways) bus to ob­tain his sup­ply.
When the war end­ed in 1945, Singh sighed in re­lief, and with re­newed hope and de­ter­mi­na­tion, he sought new mar­ket­ing out­lets in the Bor­ough of San Fer­nan­do sev­en miles away. He stag­gered his vend­ing from the Na­pari­ma Boys' Col­lege on Par­adise Hill to St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, now known as Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege on Cof­fee Street. At al­ter­nate times, he sold at the mar­ket and on the King’s Wharf.
In those far-off days, he ex­plained that the bar­ra was sold with a daub of pep­pery chut­ney. The cur­ried chan­na—some­times called wet or soft chan­na—was sep­a­rate­ly sold. One day, while sell­ing near a well-known au­to garage on the wharf, a reg­u­lar work­er from the garage came to buy. He or­dered that Singh put a spread of the cur­ried chan­na on the bar­ra. So pleased was the cus­tomer with the com­bi­na­tion, that the fol­low­ing day, he or­dered, " 'Singh, boy, put some cur­ried chan­na on ah bar­ra and cov­er it wid an­od­der bar­ra to make like ah sand­wich.' " Singh said, "Oho! So,yuh want it dou­ble!" The sat­is­fied cus­tomer re­turned to or­der, "Aye! Singh, dat 'dou­ble' eatin’ good boy! bring ah ‘dou­ble’ dey foh mih, an put de pep­per chut­ney too." Sub­se­quent to those days, when­ev­er the man came to buy, Singh would ask, "So yuh come foh an­od­der dou­ble?" Oth­er cus­tomers ob­served, tast­ed, and were de­light­ed and sat­is­fied at the unique com­bi­na­tion. Voic­es were call­ing for more, "Can I have two dou­bles please?" And the or­ders went around; it was the ori­gin of the name 'dou­bles.'
Al­though the ba­sic art of mak­ing the del­i­ca­cies was hand­ed down from our in­den­tured fore-par­ents from In­dia, it is known that cer­tain changes were made as of ne­ces­si­ty or as a cre­ative ad­just­ment to­ward a bet­ter flavour.
The com­po­si­tion of the in­gre­di­ents was al­tered, mak­ing it an in­dige­nous food form.
Ms As­gar Ali, Chote, Dean and Singh re­main the pi­o­neers of the dou­bles. Those men and their de­vot­ed wives had sac­ri­ficed and con­tributed to a na­tion­al fast food; those who had cleared the way to­ward self-em­ploy­ment of all dou­bles ven­dors; those who had giv­en us a sim­ple meal, which is af­ford­able and nu­tri­tious. The fa­mous Ali Dou­bles chain emerged from those in­den­tured roots, as well as all dou­bles ven­dors across our is­land and To­ba­go.
It is re­gret­table that those men and their de­vot­ed wives were not recog­nised and ap­plaud­ed for their laud­able con­tri­bu­tion to the culi­nary art. Princes Town, the birth and home of the mighty dou­bles, that old freight bi­cy­cle with the dou­bles box should be the sym­bol and a tan­gi­ble his­toric item to be pre­served and dis­played on a pedestal with the names of the pi­o­neers etched in a plaque with a brief his­to­ry. The peo­ple of Princes Town must keep their his­to­ry and cul­tur­al her­itage alive; you are a part of a no­ble town with a rich and en­dur­ing his­to­ry—cel­e­brate the pi­o­neers, your her­itage, your his­to­ry—The home of the dou­bles.
Source: Al Ramsawack, Trinidad Guardian, October 2019

George Arthur Roberts, born in 1890.
Leaving Trinidad, he arrives in London at the outbreak of WW1, joins up and gets nicknamed "the coconut bomber" supposedly due to his ability of throwing bombs behind enemy lines, 74 feet no less !!!!
He sustained injuries from both the Battle of Loos and the Somme. After WW1, George fell in love, settled in Lewis Rd Camberwell, got married to Margaret in 1920 and had two children.
When WW2 began, he joined the fire service, working from New Cross Fire Station and saving countless lives during the Blitz, he was awarded the British Empire Medal. Last year there was an online vote for people to nominate who they thought deserved a blue plaque on their home and this week, George was declared the winner. So there you have it, George was not only one of the first black men to join the British Army, but was also one of the first to join the fire service.
Much respect for you Sir
Source:  Ancre Somme Association Scotland

Chinese immigration to Trinidad occurred in four waves. The first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in Trinidad on 12th October 1806 on the ship Fortitude. Of the 200 passengers who set sail, 192 arrived. They came, not from mainland China, but from Macao, Penang and Canton. This first attempt at Chinese immigration was an experiment intended to set up a settlement of peasant farmers and labourers. The objectives of this experiment were to populate the newly acquired British colony (Trinidad), and more importantly, find a new labour source to replace the African slaves who would no longer be available once slavery and the slave trade were abolished. It was felt that the Chinese immigrants could work on the sugar estates.
Upon arrival, the majority of the immigrants were sent to the sugar plantations. The rest were sent to Cocorite where they lived as a community of artisans and peasant farmers. Living conditions there were awful. Very few of the immigrants stayed on the estates for long. Many of those who decided to stay in Trinidad became butchers, shopkeepers, carpenters and market gardeners. The rest returned to China on the Fortitude. Of the 192 immigrants only 23 opted to stay in Trinidad. The experiment was considered a failure and was never repeated.
The second wave of Chinese immigration took place after the abolition of slavery. Most of the immigrants came from the southern Guangdong province: an area comprising Macao, Hong Kong and Canton. The immigrants arrived in Trinidad as indentured labourers between 1853 and 1866. It was normal for the Chinese to migrate in large numbers to countries in South East Asia, but the period 1853 to 1866 saw them migrating on a global scale to countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.
Trinidad received a small portion of this vast movement. Those who came here included both indentured labourers and free Chinese who migrated voluntarily. The indentured labourers were assigned to work on the estates, and their terms and conditions of employment were the same as those given to the Indian indentured labourers. The Chinese indentureship programme came to an end in 1866 because the Chinese government insisted on a free return passage for the labourers. The British government, which had organised the indentureship programme, felt that this was too costly, and ended the programme.
The third wave of Chinese migration began after 1911 and was a direct result of the Chinese revolution. Between 1920s and 1940s immigration increased significantly. These new immigrants comprised families and friends of earlier migrants. They did not work on the estates but came as merchants, peddlers, traders and shopkeepers.
In addition to the immigrants from China there were also immigrants from other parts of the Caribbean region - mainly Guyana. These were Chinese who had originally served their indentureship on the mainland. Once their period of indentureship was finished they migrated to Trinidad to seek better opportunities.
Migration ceased completely during the period of the Chinese Revolution. However, during the late 1970s when China started opening up to the outside world, migration resumed once more. This was the fourth wave and continues on a small scale up to today.
LIST OF VESSELS ARRIVING IN TRINIDAD WITH CHINESE IMMIGRANTS, 1806-1866

• Fortitude - 12 October 1806
• Australia - March 1853
• Clarendon - 23 April 1853
• Lady Flora Hastings - 28 June 1853
• Maggie Miller/Wanata - 3 July 1862
• Montrose - 18 February 1865
• Paria - 25 May 1865
• Dudbrook - 12 February 1866
• Red Riding Hood - 24 February 186

Source:  National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago