CARNIVAL STORY
MAKING OF THE
BARBER-GREENE
By Terry Joseph
Episode Eight
Express
February 28, 2000
Pages 30 & 31
Even with the difficulties experienced during the 1890s, the period
simultaneously hosted a series of significant improvements to the Carnival.
As
the decade progressed, confrontation had given way to the beginnings of
peaceful and pretty mas (Wild Indians, clowns and jamettes had already been
well established).
The
advance in costume elegance was partly inspired by the paving of the roadway in
the capital city, and now that the violence appeared to have subsided, the
chantuelles returned to the streets, leading organised Carnival bands with
especially composed songs.
But
war was again about to enter (and consequently alter) the Carnival picture.
The
1900 Carnival saw the first real evidence of advertising bands, satirical old
mas and something completely new - class integration at street level.
But
it suffered an artistic about-face by the chantuelles.
From
the tradition of singing patois picong aimed at the establishment "sans
humanite", the festival's soundtrack now featured calypsoes sung in
English, expressing undying loyalty to Britain.
These
changes were largely inspired by a feeling of kinship with the motherland,
fuelled by Britain's showing in the Boer War, which started in 1899.
But
patriotism, intense as it may have been then, could not quell public discontent
three years later when Director of Public Works Walsh Wrightson announced a
rate-hike for water.
Calypsoes
and J'Ouvert of 1903 included frank suggestions for Wrightson.
One
month later, the Red House was burned to the ground.
The
rest of that century's first decade showed slow growth, but we should note that
by 1910, there were Carnival competitions for bands on Marine Square (now
Independence Square) and Chacon Street, both offering seating accommodation.
But
there was more war to come. World War I
brought about the banning of masks in 1917.
One
year later, the Trinidad Guardian was founded and as its first major social
interface, the newspaper decided to sponsor the victory Carnival of 1919 at a
new venue - the Queen's Park Savannah.
Part
of its advertising strategy to lure people up to the new venue and away from
the downtown mas was a campaign to convince spectators and masqueraders that
the city was far too dusty to properly show or view the costumes.
Today,
controversy still surrounds the matter of dusty conditions, only that the
argument now has to do with the very Savannah.
A
plan first unveiled last July and said to be a means of defeating the dust
problem by replacing the grass on the parade strip with a hard surface, has
been the subject of continuing confrontation with environmentalists.
It
is not the first time that a conflict of this nature has erupted.
In
1972, when a strip of asphalt was proposed for the portion of the parade route
at the Queen's Park Savannah that lies east of the Grand Stand, similar
objections were raised.
The
Carnival Development Committee (CDC) of the day was not as accommodating to
protesters and went about paving the strip regardless, completing the operation
under cover of night.
The
strip, quickly put down by mechanized road surfacing equipment, has taken the
brand name of the equipment that laid and smoothed the asphalt and is now known
as the Barber-Greene.
The
Carnival fraternity continues to argue that a hard surface would help reduce both
the dust and the dreaded congestion that takes place at the Savannah on
Carnival Tuesday, when thousands of masqueraders converge on the main
stage. Some say that the Savannah
itself is the problem.
This
year, the parade route has been extended further west to St James, in the hope
that this will alleviate the jam at least.
The
heavy music trucks, they also argue, experience serious difficulties in maneuvering
on the soft earth.
But
then, as we shall see tomorrow, from the time of its most simple manifestation,
the music of Carnival has been riddled with problems.