IRA MATH­UR

If you went by Deb­bie Ja­cob’s pro­lif­ic work in T&T as colum­nist, jour­nal­ist, film pro­duc­er, au­thor of five study com­pan­ions for Caribbean lit­er­a­ture, four works of fic­tion and three works of non­fic­tion, you would find it hard to be­lieve that her naval string wasn’t buried in these is­lands.

In fact, Ja­cob grew up on a re­mote dairy farm in Mans­field, Ohio, earned a BA in an­thro­pol­o­gy from Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty and mi­grat­ed to T&T in 1984. She first lived in War­renville, cen­tral Trinidad, the set­ting for her six-part tele­vi­sion dra­ma Sug­ar­cane Ar­rows, star­ring David Rud­der.

A prac­tic­ing jour­nal­ist for decades her fic­tion in­cludes Leg­end of the St. Ann’s Flood, Nevile and the Lost Bridge, Nevile and the Dup­py Mas­ter, and a col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, Speak­ing of Promis­es.

Her non­fic­tion books, all a deep dive in T&T, in­clude Wish­ing for Wings, Mak­ing Waves: How the West In­dies Shaped the US and Po­lice Dogs of Trinidad and To­ba­go: a 70-year his­to­ry.

Her non­fic­tion books probe un­usu­al an­gles to un­der­stand the re­gion’s crime and his­to­ry.

Wish­ing for Wings (Ian Ran­dle Pub­lish­ers, Ja­maica) de­scribes a CXC Eng­lish class in YTC, made up of teenagers in­car­cer­at­ed for vi­o­lent armed rob­bery and mur­der. They are out­casts who look to their Eng­lish teacher and an ed­u­ca­tion to re­deem their lives.

Mak­ing Waves: How the West In­dies Shaped the US (Ian Ran­dle Pub­lish­ers, Ja­maica) is a col­lec­tion of vi­gnettes about the pow­er­ful, in­flu­en­tial side of Caribbean his­to­ry.

Ja­cob thinks of her work “as an im­mi­grant’s view of my adopt­ed home – an is­land of beau­ty and cri­sis. I want writ­ing about this re­gion to awak­en a new aware­ness and spir­it of com­mit­ment to this re­gion’s roots in read­ers.”

Po­lice Dogs of Trinidad and To­ba­go: A 70-Year His­to­ry, which will be pub­lished lat­er this year by Mc­Far­land & Co. in the US, us­es po­lice dogs’ files and in­ter­views with ca­nine po­lice of­fi­cers to trace the de­vel­op­ment of crime in this coun­try from the ar­rival of the first four dogs in 1952.

It spans the wan­ing years of colo­nial­ism, In­de­pen­dence, the Black Pow­er move­ment, the rise of the il­le­gal drug trade, kid­nap­ping and ter­ror­ism from the po­lice dogs’ per­spec­tive.

Ex­cerpt from Po­lice Dogs of Trinidad and To­ba­go -- A 70-Year His­to­ry pub­lished by Mc­Far­land & Com­pa­ny, US is avail­able for pre-or­der. All rights re­served by Au­thor, Deb­bie Ja­cob and Pub­lish­er.

“Chap­ter 1

Dog Days

Sep­tem­ber 25, 1952

“Four Trinida­di­an po­lice of­fi­cers, ac­com­pa­nied by their new­ly ac­quired Al­sa­tians, had no idea of the fate await­ing them as they board­ed the ship that would car­ry them home. They had just com­plet­ed a three-month course at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice Train­ing Cen­tre in the UK. Cpl. Theophilus Thomas, Cpl. Car­lyle Pig­gott; Sgt. Hamil­ton Bridge­man and Po­lice Con­sta­ble (PC) George Alex­is must have felt ex­cit­ed about the new ven­ture await­ing them in the British colony of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Quite pos­si­bly, they were un­aware of a storm brew­ing in the At­lantic.

Storms in the Caribbean can take un­ex­pect­ed turns and curl to­wards any is­land – es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the hur­ri­cane sea­son from June through No­vem­ber. On Sep­tem­ber 25, me­te­o­rol­o­gists in Flori­da not­ed an east­er­ly wave that showed signs of in­ten­si­fy­ing over the At­lantic, about sev­en hun­dred miles east of the Less­er An­tilles. Air­craft scan­ning the area en­coun­tered squalls of six­ty-eight knots over a con­sid­er­able dis­tance. Re­ports not­ed 100-mph winds. A hur­ri­cane ap­peared to be form­ing, but no closed cen­tre of cir­cu­la­tion could be found. The sea ap­peared rough and un­pre­dictable.

At around 8 am that day, the four of­fi­cers ar­rived in Port of Spain, “just­ly proud of these dogs with which they were trained” (as Thomas would lat­er write in Bruno’s file). Thomas and his dog Bruno, Pig­gott with his dog Win­ston, Bridge­man and Shah, and Alex­is with Car­los land­ed in Trinidad with­out any record­ed fan­fare. The four of­fi­cers, dressed in suits, ties, and the fe­do­ras of the day, posed for a pic­ture on the ship’s deck. With heads held high, the four dogs sat at their han­dlers’ feet.

The first of­fi­cial no­ta­tion of the dogs’ pres­ence in Trinidad came from a note Thomas wrote in Bruno’s file: “Bruno, Car­los, Shah, and Win­ston ar­rived in the Colony on Sep­tem­ber 25, 1952, and were tak­en on the strength of the force and post­ed to the De­pot (DP 9031).”

There, the dogs would await their first du­ties.

On Sep­tem­ber 27, the Flori­da Met Of­fice watched the weath­er pat­tern formed just be­fore the of­fi­cers’ ar­rival and fi­nal­ly as­signed a name: Hur­ri­cane Dog. Thomas, Pig­gott, Bridge­man, and Alex­is es­caped that storm, but they would face unimag­in­able dan­ger in the fu­ture while mak­ing his­to­ry as the first four Trinida­di­an ca­nine po­lice of­fi­cers.”

End of ex­cerpt.

In 2019, Deb­bie Ja­cob ( www.deb­bie­ja­cob.org) re­ceived a com­men­da­tion from the Mount­ed and Ca­nine Branch for her work to im­prove con­di­tions for po­lice dogs and the Ex­press In­di­vid­ual of the Year award for her prison work, which in­clud­ed form­ing prison de­bate teams and of­fer­ing skills to re-in­te­grate in­mates in­to so­ci­ety. In 2020, she re­ceived a na­tion­al award, Cha­co­nia Gold, for her prison and po­lice dog work.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023. (www.iras­room.org)