DESMOND SOBERS

WHEN SAGA BOYS RULED

 

By Caldeo Sookram

Sunday Express

Section 2

July 2, 2000

Page 30

 

Desmond Sobers was a long-time saga boy.

 

He is still around and remembers the era of the 1950s when dressing was the trademark of a saga boy.

 

Trousers were made from mohair, gabardine, pick and pick, vickquna, trouserine, sharkskin, doeskin and grey flannel.  They were pleated with seam to cut and sewn with fat knees and small bottoms.

 

Sticking out from the two back pockets was a handkerchief each, one perfumed to maintain glamour while the other one was for wiping a sweaty face.

 

It was Banlon and Orland jerseys.  Long-sleeve or short-sleeve shirts were used, in matching colours with the trousers.  Sometimes colours would vary but all shirts as a rule were tucked in trousers.

 

Pointed-tip shoes with elastic at the side, two-tone ones in colours black and white, ex-blood, brown and white and champagne and white were the order of the day.  To clean some of the two-tone shoes, in some instances, a matchstick had to be used to colour the intricate design on them.

 

Stingy brim hats topped the ensemble and the saga boys wore them matching colours.  Sobers says that upon request, the stores shaped the hats into other fashions like the steamboats and topee.  And they came in brand names - Adams, McGregor and Stetson.

 

All the boys dressed in similar clothes - same colour shirts or jerseys, pants, hats and shoes.  According to Sobers, the acceptable age for becoming a saga boy was 15.  Most of the boys were learning trade so they had some money to spend on clothes.  "Those who didn’t have, we gave them a little change," says Sobers.

 

Hairstyles were in imitation of the great American singer Enrico Caruso - a side part and a muff.  Later styles of Tony Curtis and Elvis Presley were added to those with such texture of hair that could accommodate those styles.  "Anybody with a bushy hair was considered a vagabond," says Sobers.  And it was common to heckle others with unkept hair: "Hey, you owing the barber" or "You 'fraid the barber."

 

Sobers says that saga boys were generally non-smokers and non-drinkers.  "It was snowball and coconut water.  Well, that was in Port of Spain."

 

In rural areas where saga boys walked the countryside, some of them sported a pack of Anchor Special cigarettes in their shirt pockets.  That gave them the stamp of adulthood.

 

Then there were those saga boys who rode around on Raleigh and Humber bicycles - ladies models, of course.  With three-speed bikes, they ticked around tirelessly changing gears, back-pedaling, swerving from one side of the road to the other, sometimes overtaking taxis and buses, to catch a smile from attractive female pedestrians along the roadway.

 

The saga boys were always on the quest to attract girls.  In dance halls it was a competition for who could dance the best.

 

Transport to parties was by bus, train or taxi.

 

"So when the boys from Port of Spain move up to San Juan and they danced with the girls from that town, jealousy sometimes take place," Sobers recalls.  "Next thing you know, man have to run for they life.  It was battle…"

 

The razor was always the preferred weapon of saga boys, although a few carried the much-feared bull pistle.  Razors were either of white or black handle, akin to the one Mighty Sparrow mentioned in his calypso "Ten to One is Murder."

 

Saga boys often rubbed their razors in garlic, so that a cut from that weapon would not produce immediate pain.  "A man getting a cut with a razor would hardly know," says Sobers.

 

In fact, Sobers says that those who came out to battle displayed a handkerchief conspicuously tied around their foreheads as a battle signal to saga boys from other towns.

 

But then there were saga boys and saga boy badjohns.  There were those with tattooed arms and bumping around with their toes pointing inwards.

 

The Hollywood influence was always present.  Gun talk from Western films gave many a saga boy some good lyrics for any occasion.

 

Then there were those saga boy badjohns who simply limed around theatres to make sure nobody took advantage of their friends.

 

Most were unmarried.  Matrimony clipped their wings forever.

 

Desmond Sobers, fondly called "Jim Bill", started his career as a saga boy just after World War II.  He is still very well dressed to this day and can still be classified as a saga boy.  From head to toe he takes pride in maintaining sartorial class.

 

Sobers was a member of the saga boys group called Waterloo.  He also helped in founding the steelband named "Bad Behaviour", a band of panmen that later turned out to be today's Neal and Massy All Stars steelband of Duke Street, Port of Spain.

 

Born on September 28, 1922, Sobers has worked on the port for many years until retirement in 1988.  Today, he is still a member of All Stars Old Boys and maintains regular contacts with his friends of long ago.

 

He is one of the most famous players of fireman mas in Trinidad and Tobago and is equally renowned as a leading flagman among masqueraders.  He has been playing mas since the 1930s and doesn't intend to stop anytime soon.

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