Trinidad and Tobago Newsday
Ralph James at his mini-pan workshop in St AugustineTrinidad & Tobago, W.I. - My name is Ralph James and I do everything to do with pan.
I remember the days when pan didn’t have respect. Is there I come from.
....Since I small, these pans around me. Pan was a serious, serious thing since in the earlies.
From the first few weeks I leave school, about 13 going in 14, I used to be outside just liming but my brother put me to learn in a big tyre company.
Just like the pan and them, tyre all over you!
Me and my friend went up. He is a big-time panman. He is a overall, too. Glen Ward. They’s call him Sandopie from Tunapuna. He’s a favourite.
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This is the BEST PAN STORY I ever read on WHEN STEEL TALKS or IN MY LIFE.
Being from TUNAPUNA, and being able to hear the sincerity of his story (and the time period). As I read the story the temptation to add some controversial comment, --after reading the full article -- gnawed at me and I begged myself for restraint.
Let me expand on that. In that period in Trinidad illegal small islanders were invading the island. But I knew that they did not come to TUNAPUNA. So as I read the story I kept telling myself that this man has to be a REAL TRINIDADIAN ... like me.And everybody on this website knows that I am always boasting about being A REAL TRINIDADIAN.
What a shock I got when he summarized his interview by saying: "A Trini is somebody who born and grow in the island."
I will add: A Trini is somebody who born and grow in the island [generations down].
GREAT GREAT STORY!!!\
CALYPSO and STEELBAND is THE CULTURE OF TRINIDAD.