Ray Funk

In the last sev­er­al days, British Pathe has re­leased a huge part of its his­toric news­reel archives on Youtube. Over 80,000 clips have been up­loaded. Most of these are very short, and of­ten the scene of in­ter­est is fleet­ing but any­one in­ter­est­ed in Trinidad Car­ni­val his­to­ry can't help but be ex­cit­ed to get to see some in­trigu­ing bits and pieces in the col­lec­tion.

The best must be the Car­ni­val Sto­ry news­reel from 1957 that is a full five and a half min­utes and is in glo­ri­ous colour. It of­fers shots of dif­fer­ent steel­bands and of a num­ber of the lead­ing mas bands of the year in­clud­ing Bob­by Am­mons's La Fi­es­ta Bra­va, his trib­ute to bull­fight­ing, Harold Salde­nah's Glo­ry of Greece, and George Bai­ley's leg­endary Back to Africa as well as an amaz­ing fan­cy sailor cos­tumes and In­di­an bands. There is al­so silent ver­sion of what ap­pear to be more out­take footage un­der the ti­tle Trinidad Car­ni­val–Colour.

The Roy­al Fam­i­ly and its trips to the Caribbean have of­ten been the top­ic of British news­reels and some of those are of par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est. Princess Mar­garet com­ing in 1955 led to a com­pe­ti­tion of ca­lyp­soes in her ho­n­our that re­sult­ed in a num­ber be­ing com­posed by the likes of Melody and Pan­ther but the news­reel on­ly has a brief bit of one on the sound­track. In Trinidad the 1958 re­turn of the Princess co­in­cid­ed with a Queen's Hall per­for­mances by an uniden­ti­fied dance group and steel­band on stage. The news­reel of a 1960 vis­it by the Princess fea­tures a lim­bo group.

The Queen her­self came in 1966 and there was a pre­view of Car­ni­val for her vis­it that oc­curred on 7-9 Feb­ru­ary. The news­reel cap­tures shots of Guin­ness Cav­a­liers, what ap­pears to be King Hal from George Bai­ley's Kings Go Forth, and the one mas band that Wil­fred Strass­er put to­geth­er be­fore his un­time­ly death a few months lat­er, Some­time, Some­where. You can spot him rid­ing on the neck of a drag­on. There was an­oth­er news­reel when the Queen moved on to British Guiana where a steel­band is heard more than seen.

In gen­er­al, ca­lyp­soes did not get as much cov­er­age. How­ev­er, it was British Pathe that was there to meet the Win­drush in 1948 and catch Kitch singing his clas­sic Lon­don is the Place for Me be­fore he ever set foot in the coun­try. There is a nice per­for­mance by Bermu­da's best known ca­lyp­so group the Tal­bot Broth­ers filmed dur­ing a rare tour to Eng­land in 1959 singing Roar­ing Li­on's clas­sic, Mary Ann.

John Cow­ley iden­ti­fied a very ear­ly piece with Fitzroy Cole­man the great Trinida­di­an gui­tarist both singing ca­lyp­so and play­ing as part of a news­reel on Lon­don nightlife in 1947. The clip is right be­fore one of the Earl Bar­row West In­di­an jazz band that of­fers a bit of bop with evoca­tive danc­ing. Bar­row was go­ing to school at the time and would lat­er go on to be PM of Bar­ba­dos.

One can on­ly won­der what Tri­nis might be in the band. Last­ly, a brief glimpse of a Grena­di­an ca­lyp­so singer Pe­ter Ri­car­do on a Chan­nel Pas­sage boat with a dancer in 1955 but sad­ly you can't hear him sing.

Steel­band get a much greater ex­po­sure in Pathe news­reels. One of the ear­li­est clips on pan is a trav­el­ogue piece ti­tled Trinidad from 1954 shows an ear­ly steel­band and dance troupe. Per­haps this is Beryl McBurnie's dance troupe. There is al­so silent clip from 1958 with two seg­ments of her Lit­tle Carib dancers. A film iden­ti­fied as on­ly from the Six­ties has very strong bit of danc­ing and pan that is not iden­ti­fied.

There are sev­er­al in­trigu­ing bits on pan his­to­ry in Britain on dis­play. While it is the oth­er news­reel com­pa­ny (British Movi­etone) that cap­tured TASPO in 1951, Pathe caught sev­er­al ear­ly pan per­for­mances. The ear­li­est is a 1953 Roy­al Riv­er Barge there is a very brief clip of a barge, which shows dancers, per­haps Boscoe Hold­er and his troupe and what looks like just a brief glimpse of Russ Hen­der­son's trio, about the on­ly pan group ac­tive at the time. But that is just a guess and the clip is very fleet­ing. They are around in the Lord May­or's pa­rade the next year.

They are al­so in a 1961 clip where Hen­der­son's trio with Ster­ling Be­tan­court is easy to iden­ti­fy. It is about the Ox­ford Un­der­grad­u­ate Ball where they would lead rev­ellers around the cam­pus, a role that Hen­der­son's group of­ten took on and can al­so be seen at a Cam­bridge ball in the fea­ture film, Bach­e­lor of Hearts (1958). It is like­ly that they are al­so the steel­band that is heard but not seen in the 1963 Cam­bridge May Ball shown in an­oth­er news­reel. Both Russ Hen­der­son and Ster­ling Bet­tan­court were ho­n­oured at the Panora­ma fi­nals this year and Bet­tan­court is about to pub­lish his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy.

There is an uniden­ti­fied steel­band from 1963 ap­pear­ing at the 1963 British Mu­si­cal In­stru­ment Trade Fair, which is per­form­ing out­side and fea­tures a short per­for­mance. A full steel­band on a West In­dies float in the Lord May­or's Pa­rade of 1965 is seen for a very short seg­ment but the close-ups are clear that hope­ful­ly some­one can iden­ti­fy the band! An­oth­er 1965 clip is from the Two Tem­po restau­rant and it shows a glo­ri­ous minute or more of La Flam­beau, the band made up of the mem­bers of Dix­ieland Steel­band who stayed in Eng­land with a bit of lim­bo fea­tur­ing Stretch Cox. The fi­nal steel­band in Britain clip from 1965 is a too brief scene of the Trinidad Na­tion­al Steel­band per­form­ing, who had come to Eng­land to per­form as part of the Com­mon­wealth Arts Fes­ti­val.

There are cer­tain­ly oth­er clips of in­ter­est to any­one who is a his­to­ry buff in gen­er­al but these brief glimpses of mas, pan and ca­lyp­so of­fer a unique chance to look back decades in­to an ear­li­er era when mas was mas and pan was just be­gin­ning!

Ray Funk is a re­tired Alas­ka judge who re­search­es Car­ni­val arts and has been do­ing pre­sen­ta­tions for the T&T film fes­ti­val on the film her­itage of Car­ni­val.

If any­one can pro­vide the miss­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tions, con­tact him at rfunk99707@gmail.com

In­dex to Youtube Clips

Car­ni­val Sto­ry Aka Trinidad Car­ni­val (1957)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC9OoX­h­H­tug

Trinidad Car­ni­val � Colour (1957)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YQS­FIQLLp0

Caribbean�Ca­lyp­sos En­chant The Princess (1955)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjrel­wOpoYU

The New Con­fed­er­a­tion Cel­e­brates (1958)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd­PW60C2AGA

Path Of The Princess (1960)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwB­mDtQProc

Queen In West In­dies - Tech­ni­col­or (1966)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_55lLAR0fs

The Roy­al Tour - Tech­ni­col­or (1966)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E538lH_-avA

Queen Meets Her Peo­ples - Tech­ni­col­or (1966)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNov­su­uDYm8

Pathe Re­porter Meets (1948)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDH4IBeZF-M

Tal­bot Bros. Mary Anne (1959)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_SgXPgJS04

Lon­don's Night­world Reel 2 (1947)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=851_-gerb_

No Pass­port Trip (1955)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty­cxH_maw1U

Trinidad (1954)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeb­sRQkXN­lE

Roy­al Tour Of West In­dies Aka Princess Mar­garet In West In­dies (1958)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5snpwb­b­Ce­NY

BOAC And BWIA Present A Fly­ing Vis­it To The Caribbean (1960-1969)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQtWUAWuM1I

Roy­al Riv­er Pageant (1953)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP4m307ZP1o

Lon­don Hails New Lord May­or (1954)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u137-jQmyw

Ox­ford Un­der­grad's Ball (1961)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppAfmZHvl­SI

The Ques­tion­ing City (1963)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZWzkK3snAU

It Comes Out Here (1963)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuG5uEc1XuA

Lord May­or's Show (1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m0FFuCFKao

Two Tem­po Restau­rant (1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx5YQv7xZq0

Com­mon­wealth Goes Gay (1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ef7Gt­FZz0U.