Pe­ter Ray Blood

Trib­utes poured in yes­ter­day for steel­band icon Ian "Ted­dy" Bel­grave, who died at the St Au­gus­tine Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal over the week­end.Bel­grave, fa­ther of T&T Guardian free­lance sube­d­i­tor Che­nier Bel­grave, was 67.A friend and fel­low pan re­searcher, Nestor Sul­li­van, man­ag­er of San Juan's Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra, yes­ter­day re­called Bel­grave's con­tri­bu­tion to pan. He said Bel­grave was orig­i­nal­ly from Laven­tille al­though he was in­volved in steel­bands along the East-West Cor­ri­dor. Sul­li­van said Bel­grave's broth­ers, Robin and John, were al­so in­volved in pan, with Robin be­ing a mem­ber of South­ern Sym­pho­ny, and John a found­ing mem­ber of Ebony Steel Or­ches­tra, based in Lon­don, UK."Ted­dy first be­gan in High­landers with the late Bertie Mar­shall while at­tend­ing Queen's Roy­al Col­lege," re­called Sul­li­van.

On leav­ing col­lege, Bel­grave mi­grat­ed to Cana­da for his ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion where he be­came a mem­ber of Mel­lotones Steel Or­ches­tra. In the wake of the dis­tur­bances at Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty, in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da, Bel­grave re­turned to Trinidad in 1970 and en­rolled at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI)."Ted­dy is a found­ing mem­ber of Bird­song at UWI," said Sul­li­van."In 1973, on leav­ing UWI, Ted­dy be­gan work­ing with OW­TU and got in­volved with OW­TU Free French steel or­ches­tra. He left OW­TU and be­gan teach­ing at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka, Mar­aval, where he start­ed the col­lege steel­band, which even­tu­al­ly merged with Wood­brook Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School stu­dents to form Woodtrin Steel Or­ches­tra. On leav­ing Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Ted­dy went to Ari­ma Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive and be­gan the school band there as well."

Through Bel­grave's in­volve­ment with the Ari­ma school steel­band, he be­came af­fil­i­at­ed to for­mer Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Nu Tones and sub­se­quent­ly Ari­ma An­gel Harps steel or­ches­tras. He al­so be­came chair­man of the Pan in Schools Co-or­di­nat­ing Coun­cil, ini­ti­at­ed by teach­ers who were in­volved in pan in schools. In 2000, he was nom­i­nat­ed to the board of the T&T Na­tion­al Steel Or­ches­tra as its sec­re­tary. He al­so be­came in­volved in the UTT steel­band ini­tia­tive pro­gramme and served as co-or­di­na­tor of the ad­vanced pan tun­ing pro­gramme.Sul­li­van re­called: "Ted­dy was a livewire and ex­treme­ly knowl­edge­able in pan. He was al­so a se­ri­ous re­searcher on steel­bands, writ­ing nu­mer­ous pa­pers on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment."Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said: "On a per­son­al note, I re­mem­ber Ted­dy with his big afro play­ing with High­landers, the first steel­band I ever played mas with. Ted­dy was re­al­ly com­mit­ted to nur­tur­ing young peo­ple in pan."He was a his­to­ri­an, a per­son who grew in the pan move­ment from the '60s. Ted­dy was al­ways free with his knowl­edge, and this he was filled with, with knowl­edge on pan dat­ing way back to the days of slav­ery. He suc­cess­ful­ly pen­e­trat­ed the bar­ri­er of tak­ing pan ed­u­ca­tion in­to the ter­tiary lev­el, and his con­tri­bu­tion to tak­ing pan in­to school is in­valu­able. Ted­dy Bel­grave will be missed, es­pe­cial­ly in the ar­eas of archiv­ing and re­search­ing pan."

Found­ing Bird­song mem­ber An­dre Moses added his con­do­lences on Bel­grave's pass­ing: "In the start, Bird­song was just a cam­pus band, with Ted­dy and Ger­ry Sagar be­ing the on­ly two mem­bers with pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence in pan."De­scrib­ing Bel­grave as a "vi­sion­ary," Moses con­tin­ued: "Ted­dy came up with the idea to form a band on cam­pus. He want­ed 'a se­ri­ous steel­band' and not one which was just an­oth­er cam­pus club.Up to yes­ter­day fu­ner­al arrange­ments had not been re­leased.