An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

The 1920s saw Siparia ex­pand as a com­mer­cial cen­tre, es­pe­cial­ly with the steep rise in the price of co­coa which still oc­cu­pied con­sid­er­able acreages around Siparia.By this time, most of the old Roy­al­ist planters were dead and the on­ly large co­coa es­tate was owned by the Hon Tim­o­thy Roodal, a mem­ber of the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil. Av­o­cat and Stan­dard Vil­lage, how­ev­er, were oc­cu­pied by nu­mer­ous small co­coa farm­ers who plant­ed es­tates of ten�20 acres.

The 1930s saw Siparia emerge in­to the age of the cin­e­ma. Two movie hous­es, the Re­gent and Plaza Cin­e­ma (orig­i­nal­ly owned by the Plaza Fam­i­ly), came in­to be­ing at this time. The lat­ter stayed in busi­ness un­til 1986, al­beit un­der sev­er­al dif­fer­ent own­ers.

Plaza Cin­e­ma was the venue of many vaude­ville shows star­ring lo­cal tal­ent. Fore­most among the per­form­ers was strong­man and body­builder Phidias Bisses­sars­ingh who was al­so known as "Tarzan" be­cause his feats of strength were al­ways done wear­ing just a loin­cloth made of re­al jaguar skin.

Jazz mae­stros Clive and Carl­ton Zan­da (Alexan­der) are al­so long-time res­i­dents of Siparia and grew up here dur­ing the town's hey­day. These ac­com­plished mu­si­cians still make con­tri­bu­tions to the lo­cal mu­sic scene.

The years of WWII saw a change in Siparia so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly with the in­flux of Amer­i­can sol­diers to bases in Ce­dros and Los Iros. These sol­diers would some­times vis­it Siparia and have a spree with liquor, ca­lyp­so and women. A reg­u­lar taxi ser­vice to San Fer­nan­do was es­tab­lished in this era, with Ford "Woody" wag­ons be­ing the choice of ve­hi­cle.

The build­ing which used to house the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fice is known lo­cal­ly as the old army build­ing be­cause it was an ad­min­is­tra­tive post for the Al­lied Forces dur­ing the war. To­wards the end of the war, the St Christo­pher's An­gli­can School was built.

Siparia dur­ing the 1950s was a place of change. In 1955, the Pres­by­te­ri­ans built the now renowned Iere High School as a sis­ter col­lege to the fa­mous Na­pari­ma Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do. This in­sti­tu­tion has pro­duced many ac­com­plished grad­u­ates and pros­pered ex­ceed­ing­ly dur­ing the stew­ard­ship of its first prin­ci­pal, the ven­er­a­ble Rev Cyril Be­har­ry.

The cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter, the Hon Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, is an alum­nus of this in­sti­tu­tion. With the for­ma­tion of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment in 1956, Siparia be­came a ma­jor stop for the great po­lit­i­cal "ex­cur­sions" of Dr Er­ic Williams.To­wards the end of the 1950s a cy­cling velo­drome was built at Ir­win Park. The park was the scene of pop­u­lar horse and don­key races in the 1920s and 30s which at­tract­ed spec­ta­tors and pun­ters from around the is­land. This is now the site of a mod­ern sta­di­um due to be com­plet­ed in 2015.

The year 1954 saw the last of the Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­way in Siparia, which ran its last en­gine in that year due to the mas­sive fi­nan­cial loss­es that were be­ing sus­tained. The line was up­root­ed, and to­day on­ly small sec­tions of the orig­i­nal course ex­ist. Dur­ing the 1970s two sec­ondary schools, Siparia Ju­nior Sec­ondary and Siparia Se­nior Sec­ondary schools were con­struct­ed. These con­tin­ue to pro­vide mean­ing­ful ed­u­ca­tion­al stim­u­lus for the youth of the dis­trict.

Though parang was orig­i­nal­ly brought to Trinidad in the mid-19th cen­tu­ry by "co­coa pa­ny­ol" im­mi­grants who had come as labour on the co­coa es­tates, it did not re­al­ly gain wide­spread cre­dence un­til the ad­vent of Daisy Voisin dur­ing the 1960s. Daisy, the undis­put­ed "parang queen," (a for­mer school­teacher and nurse) lent a zest and life to the parang tra­di­tion with the as­sis­tance of her group of paran­deros, La Div­ina Pas­to­ra. Though Daisy died in 1991, her mu­sic is still a cor­ner­stone of a Tri­ni Christ­mas. A bronze stat­ue to her mem­o­ry was erect­ed in 2014.

To­wards the end of the 20th and in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry, Siparia con­tin­ues on its brave front. Still a small coun­try town, its her­itage in parang and oth­er en­deav­ours is still very ev­i­dent.Re­cent­ly the En­vi­ro­fest com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing sev­er­al no­ta­bles of the re­gion, has been in­stru­men­tal in pro­mot­ing lo­cal cul­ture. The old land­ing place of the Amerindi­ans, Quinam Beach, is now a bustling week­end hot spot.

The church of La Div­ina Pas­to­ra is al­so still very much alive, and the an­nu­al Siparia Fete is an event that is much looked for­ward to by many peo­ple through­out T&T.The mul­ti-eth­nic, cos­mopoli­tan pop­u­la­tion is the re­al wealth of Siparia, where men are still broth­ers, and peace is still a very re­al con­cept.