Trinidad and To­ba­go In­de­pen­dence Ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ued in Lon­don with a re­cent gala din­ner for dis­tin­guished na­tion­als at the Roy­al Gar­den Ho­tel in Kens­ing­ton. Host­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion­er Garvin Nicholas, the oc­ca­sion al­so recog­nised the con­tri­bu­tion of cit­i­zens who made a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the pro­mo­tion and de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the Unit­ed King­dom dur­ing the last 50 years. Awards were grant­ed to na­tion­als in the area of gov­er­nance and pol­i­tics, busi­ness, aca­d­e­m­ic, sports, ser­vice to the gov­ern­ment, and the com­mu­ni­ty.

But it was the arts that drew the largest num­ber of awards. Danielle De­lon, cur­rent­ly res­i­dent in Trinidad, is ed­i­tor of The Let­ters of Mar­garet Mann. Speak­ing af­ter re­ceiv­ing her award, she said: "I am very pleased that the book, pro­duced and print­ed in Trinidad in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery has proven to be of im­por­tance to schol­ars and his­to­ri­ans in­ter­na­tion­al­ly." It is a col­lec­tion of let­ters writ­ten by a young British woman to her par­ents back home dur­ing the mid-1880s. It al­so fea­tures wa­ter­colours done in the style of her art tu­tor, Michel Jean Caz­abon, which form part of the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um's na­tion­al col­lec­tion. The book is one of the rare fe­male ac­counts of Caribbean life at that time and is avail­able to re­searchers at the Bodleian Li­brary at Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. De­lon's next lit­er­ary projects in­clude a his­to­ry of lo­cal food start­ing sev­er­al years BC, and the 50th An­niver­sary De­fence Force Book to com­mem­o­rate the cre­ation of the coun­try's mil­i­tary ser­vices af­ter In­de­pen­dence. De­lon is al­so the di­rec­tor of the an­nu­al chil­dren's lit­er­ary fes­ti­val, run by the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, which pro­motes read­ing and writ­ing among the young.

List of Awardees

Gov­er­nance and Pol­i­tics

Baroness Floel­la Ben­jamin OBE

Coun­cil­lor Julie Mills

Busi­ness

Dounne Alexan­der MBE, FR­SA,

Charles In­skip Max Baden-Sem­per

Prof An­drew Ram­roop OBE

Ansel Wong

Acadaemia

Prof Hei­di Safia Mirza

Sport

Lau­ra Denise Ram­say

Out­stand­ing Ser­vice to the Com­mu­ni­ty

Is­abel­la Bir­bal

Kameel Khan

Mo­hammed Rasheed Khan

Rev Canon John Metivi­er

Suresh Ram­baran

Jacque­line Sealey

Gulsie Sule­man

Out­stand­ing ser­vice to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T

Juk­ka Ant-Wuori­nen

Kauf­mann Bernd List­ner

Kurt Brus­gaard

Rolf Hol­men

Howard M S Kroch

In­go Meyr

The Arts

Ster­ling Be­tan­court

Son­ny Blacks

Danielle De­lon

Rus­sell Hen­der­son

CSI Steel­band

Dex­ter Khan

Neil Latch­man

Althea Mc­Nish CMT, Hon. DFA (UTT)

Gre­ta Mendez

Lin­coln Ra­hamut

Clary Sa­landy

Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, DLitt (hc), FR­SA

Ronald Samm

Rudolph Walk­er OBE