Pe­ter Ray Blood

It start­ed in 1980, as a mas camp. Not any old mas camp, mind you-Min­shall's mas camp!Im­me­di­ate­ly there­after to be vis­it­ed by the sa­cred and by the pro­fane, by be­liev­ers and by crit­ics alike, by con­formists and by reck­less icon­o­class. They came, some saw and be­lieved some un­der­stood, some ste­upsed, some vil­i­fied. And some went away in awe.Five years lat­er, in 1985, one night dur­ing the launch of The Gold­en Cal­abash, a friend, his tone be­tray­ing his won­der­ment, asked: "In what oth­er mas camp grog flowin', mu­sic jam­min', ooman winin', can you find peo­ple en­gaged in se­ri­ous in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­course about a dis­play of mas pic­tures and draw­ings?" It was a piece for so­cial­is­ing and ar­gu­ing and fantacis­ing. Re­al­i­ty seemed sus­pend­ed in a time bub­ble. The fan­ta­sy was the essence. Come Car­ni­val morn­ing, it be­came a place of mad­ness and com­pre­hen­sive chaos -smiles, greet­ings, mu­sic, cussing, and the steady al­most pal­pa­ble beat of ex­cit­ed hearts. In­deed it was "the midst of the whirl­wind's ra­di­ance."Af­ter be­ing Min­shall's mas camp, The Mas Camp Pub (now De Nu Pub) was found­ed in March 1986 at its French Street lo­ca­tion in Wood­brook. Broth­ers Mac, Frank and Rod­er­ick Ward are among the in­di­vid­u­als cred­it­ed with the vi­sion to es­tab­lish this pop­u­lar "home of ca­lyp­so," and a meet­ing place for all cul­ture lovers.

For the love of lo­cal cul­ture

For 25 years, the Ward broth­ers have staged live ca­lyp­so shows every Wednes­day night (ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,300 shows), most times op­er­at­ing at a lost due to poor pa­tron­age. The Mas Camp is prob­a­bly the on­ly show­biz es­tab­lish­ment in the coun­try that opens every day of the week, in­clu­sive of Good Fri­day.Oh, it was one hell of a mas camp!"So why not con­tin­ue the ex­pe­ri­ence?" some­one thought. "Why let the gai­ety and the spon­tane­ity and this mag­nif­i­cent ef­fer­ves­cence die in Wednes­day's ash­es?"The an­swer came al­most be­fore the ques­tion­er had fin­ished. A mas camp was to be­come , yes The Mas Camp. Don't stop the Car­ni­val. Play our mu­sic, hold our peo­ple, keep the spir­it.The Mas Camp was born, March 6, 1986, less than one month af­ter the ash­es, in the heart of Lent, the doors were flung open, of­fi­cial­ly. The in­ten­tion was clear­ly to use the ad­van­tages of :

(a) An al­ready much fre­quent­ed re­treat.

(b) A will­ing and avail­able clien­tele.

(c) An at­mos­phere con­ducive to re­lax­ation or gai­ety or aban­don on bac­cha­nal (cir­cum­stance and mood per­mit­ting.)

For all sea­sons

It is a small won­der, then, that The Mas Camp has be­come, if pa­tron­age was a re­li­able in­di­ca­tor of pop­u­lar­i­ty and/or suc­cess, the lead­ing pub in North Trinidad, if not in the whole coun­try, a po­si­tion at­trib­ut­able to sev­er­al fac­tors.The man­age­ment does not apol­o­gise for its in­cli­na­tion to­ward lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment, live or oth­er wise. In fact, The Mas Camp, one mem­ber of the man­age­ment team boast­ed, quite jus­ti­fi­ably, it is the on­ly pub in Trinidad and To­ba­go which rigid­ly ad­heres to its ini­tial in­ten­tion to pro­mote lo­cal mu­sic and art.The pic­ture of The Mas Camp is this then, as as­tute­ly or­gan­ised and man­aged "wa­ter­ing hole," evolv­ing out of Car­ni­val, with chameleon-like ad­justa­bil­i­ty to cir­cum­stances and clien­tele, per­form­ing a vi­tal so­cial and cul­tur­al func­tion.

The peo­ple's choice

Who are its pa­trons? The hun­gry soul need­ing a full meal (home-food, to­wards lunchtime, a "se­ri­ous bake-and-shark" in the evening).The pair of friends need­ing qui­et re­treat be­fore fac­ing the traf­fic jams on the way home. The group of of­fice work­ers need­ing a "live" af­ter the hor­ror of com­plet­ing the week's sched­ule at 4.05 pm on a Fri­day. The par­ty peo­ple at 10.30 pm Fri­day or Sat­ur­day night. The ball­room dancers in their Sun­day gowns and patent brogues.What is your plea­sure, sir? Madam? The Mas Camp ex­ists, awaits you. Step in­side, nuh.To mark its achieve­ments and salute the hun­dreds of artistes whose ca­reers have ben­e­fit­ted be­cause of The Mas Camp, the Ward broth­ers are host­ing a gala 25th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion on June 19, be­gin­ning at 6 pm.

Pre­ced­ing an evening of live mu­sic, eat­ing and danc­ing, an awards func­tion will be held, to ho­n­our vet­er­an cul­tur­al icons Hol­ly Be­taudi­er, Joey and Ansel Wy­att.Al­so on Fa­ther's Day, be­fore the an­niver­sary bash, pop­u­lar Wood­brok steel­band Brim­blers is host­ing "It's Pan & Laugh­ter...with good Sun­day Food, from noon. Fa­thers and guests can look for­ward to an af­ter­noon of not just good food, but good en­ter­tain­ment pro­vid­ed by pan­nist Earl Brooks, co­me­di­an Nuts Lands­ing, host Brim­blers and a spe­cial sur­prise guest co­me­di­an.