For some rea­son, peo­ple al­ways laugh when I ask if their child snores.  “Of course he does; he like his fa­ther” is the com­mon an­swer. 

The mid­night hour that sig­nalled T&T’s in­de­pen­dence has been re­count­ed count­less times. But the road to that his­toric mo­ment was paved long be­fore the clock struck twelve, shaped by a re­lent­less se­ries of meet­ings, metic­u­lous plan­ning and com­mit­ment.

As the red, white and black flag was raised at mid­night on Au­gust 31, 1962, Trinidad and To­ba­go had al­ready de­cid­ed on a na­tion­al flag, coat of arms, na­tion­al an­them and na­tion­al flower. But there was one cru­cial el­e­ment not yet es­tab­lished: a cur­ren­cy of its own.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rep­u­ta­tion as a home for tal­ent­ed or­chid breed­ers con­tin­ues to grow, with lo­cal breed­er Cur­tis Lutch­man and his team re­turn­ing from Flori­da with an im­pres­sive haul of awards.

Laugh­ter and sus­pense took over the Samaan Es­tate in St Clair on Au­gust 8 as Teatro Journee host­ed Served—its first din­ner the­atre—tak­ing guests on a mys­tery-filled im­mer­sive the­atre ex­pe­ri­ence.

Mu­sic pe­ri­od at Preysal Sec­ondary School is nev­er just an or­di­nary class. An­dre Fred­er­ick, who teach­es steel­pan to Forms One to Five, en­sures it is an en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence filled with prac­ti­cal life lessons.

Whether flown in packed sta­di­ums at lo­cal foot­ball games, car­ried through the streets dur­ing re­gion­al Car­ni­val pa­rades or draped across the shoul­ders of Olympic ath­letes on glob­al podi­ums, the na­tion­al flag rep­re­sents Trin­ba­go.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go moved from colony to in­de­pen­dent na­tion, women were not mere­ly on the side­lines. Through po­lit­i­cal or­gan­is­ing, civic ed­u­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty work and elec­toral pol­i­tics, they helped lay the ground­work for the coun­try that emerged in 1962. Long be­fore 1962, women in po­lit­i­cal spaces such as Au­drey Jef­fers and El­ma Fran­cois, among oth­ers, laid the cru­cial ground­work for fe­male or­gan­is­ing, cam­paign­ing and vo­cal­is­ing what coun­try they want­ed to in­her­it.

High fash­ion took cen­tre stage at South Park Plaza in May dur­ing its Moth­er’s Day Fash­ion Show, bold­ly ti­tled “A Trib­ute to the Time­less Woman.”

As Spice­mas cel­e­bra­tions conclud­ed in Grena­da, pro­duc­ers from T&T have stamped their names on the 2026 So­ca Monarch stage. Michael “Stemz” Ram­roop S’obri­an is the man be­hind the win­ning groovy song, while Mevon “Xplic­it­Mevon” Sood­een pro­duced the sec­ond-place pow­er track.

The stage at NCIC Na­gar came alive with colour, rhythm and move­ment as dancers from dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions came to­geth­er for the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture’s (NCIC) In­de­pen­dence Rain­bow Dance Fes­ti­val.

Ja­maican dance­hall star Tee­jay (Tim­oy Jones) is ap­plaud­ing the in­creas­ing­ly vis­i­ble peace move­ment among Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Trini­bad artistes, say­ing the pub­lic dis­play of uni­ty he wit­nessed dur­ing his re­cent vis­it rep­re­sents pre­cise­ly the kind of evo­lu­tion he has been ad­vo­cat­ing for with­in the cul­ture.