Every Car­ni­val sea­son, from ear­ly Jan­u­ary, the Bai­ley's house on qui­et Buller Street, Wood­brook, is trans­formed in­to a mas camp...lit­er­al­ly. Red, blue, gold and yel­low pieces of cos­tumes fill al­most every space in the house and yard of the house that mas vet­er­an, Al­bert Bai­ley shares with his daugh­ter, her hus­band, their two chil­dren and a grand­child. The Bai­leys are bring­ing out a chil­dren's band, Dancers of Africa, and are help­ing make cos­tumes for Stephen Derek's band, Call Dat George. The on­ly place that is left al­most un­touched is the kitchen, where Bai­ley's daugh­ter, Lee Ann, a cater­er, pre­pares food for the mas camp work­ers.

"I sleep any­where, on the floor, the re­clin­er," Lee Ann said. Lee Ann, who dec­o­rates the cos­tumes, al­so plays queen for Derek's band. The one bed­room where a bed was left in it is shared by Bai­ley and his grandaugh­ters, Giselle and Al­en­dra. One of the work­ers stays full­time in the Bai­ley's mas camp/house for the du­ra­tion of the Car­ni­val sea­son.

Huge parts of cos­tumes al­ready com­plet­ed, rest against the walls of the bed­rooms while the liv­ing room looks like an in­com­plete Car­ni­val band.

The ex­cite­ment and hap­pi­ness the sea­son brings for the Bai­leys were ev­i­dent when the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed last Tues­day.

Keep­ing Bai­ley tra­di­tion alive

Bai­ley, broth­er of mas icon, George Bai­ley, who died in 1972 at age 36, said he was work­ing with Derek, his "stu­dent," to bring out a band which pays trib­ute to his de­ceased broth­er. His camp, like Derek's, is one of the few in Wood­brook, de­scribed as "the mec­ca of mas mak­ing," where cos­tumes are ac­tu­al­ly made and not im­port­ed. It was from the Bai­ley broth­ers that Derek learnt the art of wirebend­ing. The frame of a big cos­tume, al­ready skill­ful­ly bent by Bai­ley, stood in one cor­ner of the front yard on wheels, wait­ing to be com­plet­ed. On­ly a small group worked on pro­duc­ing the cos­tumes for Call Dat George and the eight-sec­tion chil­dren's band, which has ten sep­a­rate char­ac­ters.

"I have a very pow­er­ful group of four," Bai­ley said, sit­ting among pieces of mas in his porch. "I don't need more. Every­body knows what to do and gets to work." Al­en­dra, the de­sign­er of the chil­dren's band, added: "We start­ed work­ing on Jan­u­ary 7, and in three weeks fin­ished all this." Al­en­dra's pas­sion is to con­tin­ue the Bai­ley tra­di­tion of mas mak­ing. "Forty-three years mas mak­ing has been go­ing on in this house," she said proud­ly. "Dr Er­ic Williams and Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning vis­it­ed here." Box­es of os­trich plumes and pheas­ant feath­ers lay on a ta­ble in a shed at the side of the house, where Mervyn John­son, 75, glued shen­ney braids to what will be the arm of a chair in a large cos­tume. John­son, of Brook­lyn, has been com­ing to the Bai­ley's camp for "forty-some­thing years" to make mas. While Bai­ley us­es bois cano bush and bread­fruit and palm leaves, he buys the os­trich and pheas­ant feath­ers from abroad be­cause they are not avail­able lo­cal­ly, he said.

In the porch, De­bra Joseph glued se­quins on­to a jack­et for a cos­tume.

"I grew up in the Bai­ley camp. I start­ed at 14 and now I am 51, and I am still go­ing with them." Joseph, a grand­moth­er and Fi­nance Min­istry work­er, said she takes her va­ca­tion every year to work in Bai­ley's camp.

"I take up res­i­dence here for the sea­son," she said. Odette Em­manuel and Giselle Camp­bell, tak­ing a lunch break, were eat­ing bread­fruit oil­down and fish in the liv­ing room. Camp­bell had been putting blue braids on­to a shield, and Em­manuel was putting blue lame on a fan.

Em­manuel, a grand­moth­er, of La Hor­quet­ta, and part-time em­ploy­ee, works most days in Bai­ley's mas camp un­til 4 pm. "Thir­ty-two years I around," she said.

Pray­ing hard

Bai­ley, 73, who be­gan play­ing mas at age ten in 1946 with a Wood­brook band called "Hell's A Pop­ping," has been bring­ing out win­ning bands for the past 37 years. He had been with Pe­ter Min­shall be­fore but "had to get out be­cause it was tak­ing over," he said. Bai­ley de­scribes mas to­day as "Car­ni­val in the flesh." He said while lo­cal mas was veer­ing more to "the flesh," Brazil, which was fa­mous for its top­less dancers, is go­ing back to cos­tumes. He re­futes the no­tion, how­ev­er, that Car­ni­val comes from the dev­il. "Some­thing as beau­ti­ful as Car­ni­val has to come from the good side," he said. "In fact, I pray very hard for the suc­cess of my band."