Since the 1940s St James has been home to more than 20 steel­pan bands, sev­er­al of which are still func­tion­al to­day. It is no se­cret that the cul­ture that is the na­tion­al in­stru­ment has al­ways been and re­mains a key as­pect of life in the west­ern dis­trict. One man who has been in­volved with the in­stru­ment since birth is Alex­is "Lecky" Hope, from Fort George Road, the birth­place of Hum­ming Birds Pan Groove.

"Here is a very cul­tur­al place," Hope said.

From a young age, Hope and his sib­lings were en­cour­aged to play, not just pan, but mu­si­cal in­stru­ments by their fa­ther, who was a found­ing mem­ber of the Hum­ming Birds Pan Groove. Years lat­er, Scrun­ters Pan Groove was formed. "They just came out as a band for kicks, just go­ing and play for Christ­mas so peo­ple would take one side of the pan and they went around and play, and peo­ple used to call them 'scrun­ters', so the name stick," he said.

His fa­ther would go on to be­come the man­ag­er.

Un­like the oth­er bands in the area, Scrun­ters has tast­ed suc­cess at Panora­ma in 1986 and 1996, win­ning the Tra­di­tion­al Sin­gle Pan ti­tle.

As the years went by, the younger Hope be­come more in­stru­men­tal in the band and to­day holds sev­er­al key po­si­tions, in­clud­ing cap­tain and mu­si­cal di­rec­tor.

The band has be­come youth-cen­tric with the bulk of its play­ers com­ing from Jef­fers Lane where it is lo­cat­ed or the par­al­lel Fort George road. Hope ex­plained that the aim is not on­ly to teach the chil­dren pan but make them in­to all-round in­di­vid­u­als. Though Hope is now 35-years-old, he still stands with the oth­er much younger band­mates.

Out­side of learn­ing to play the in­stru­ment, the band al­so tries to teach not just life skills like cook­ing, but oth­er trades like screen print­ing, mu­sic class­es, and act­ing.

"We try to give them every­thing…What­ev­er they are in­to that is pos­i­tive, we try to push them and mo­ti­vate them," he said.

By day Hope teach­es in the Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Mu­sic Pro­gramme Unit but en­sures he makes time af­ter­ward for the chil­dren at Scrun­ters.

"We have to be on these young peo­ple be­cause you know the out­side in­flu­ences, any­thing could in­flu­ence them, so I al­ways have to be that per­son. If they come and say they want to go fire­works I have to go with them," he said.

He said his vol­un­tary job was one he takes very se­ri­ous­ly.

"I even went back and study. I can’t be telling them to go and fur­ther them­selves and I’m not try­ing to do the same thing…We have com­posers al­ready who com­pos­ing their own ca­lyp­so, their own so­ca. So I telling them if you want to be suc­cess­ful you must have the aca­d­e­m­ic back­ing too," he said.

He said their aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments to date was proof that the sys­tem is work­ing. He said pan prac­tice was done be­tween 5 and 8 pm so that the chil­dren could reach home on time to do their home­work.

The stage side of the band com­pris­es 12 youths be­tween ages five and 17. This year they missed out on the se­mi-fi­nals by one point. But as Hope ex­plained, al­though they would have rel­ished the op­por­tu­ni­ty it did not damp­en their spir­its.

"I was feel­ing bad for them be­cause for some of them it was their first Panora­ma ex­pe­ri­ence, but they were like 'Lecky, we beat peo­ple,' " Hope said.

It is for this rea­son and more that Hope al­ways feels proud.