Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

As Trinidad and To­ba­go was close to be­com­ing an in­de­pen­dent na­tion in 1962, the T&T Guardian chron­i­cled the his­toric mo­ment. On Au­gust 30, 1962, the news­pa­per pre­viewed what was to come that night—the low­er­ing of the Union Jack and the rais­ing of the na­tion­al flag.

It was hailed as a “sim­ple, dra­mat­ic cer­e­mo­ny.” The Guardian ar­ti­cle read, “Mid­night tonight is Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mo­ment of des­tiny. At this hour, the coun­try and its 830,000 peo­ple, aflut­ter with the fever of In­de­pen­dence, will in­hale their first breath of po­lit­i­cal free­dom as the na­tion­al flag of red, white and black is hoist­ed on the flood­lit fore­court of the Red House, Port-of-Spain, an­ces­tral home of the coun­try’s leg­is­la­ture.”

The next day, the head­line would scream, “TRINIDAD NOW BE­COMES A NA­TION.” The sto­ry paint­ed a pic­ture of ju­bi­lant scenes as the na­tion­al flag sig­nalled a new era in the coun­try’s his­to­ry. World lead­ers had start­ed con­grat­u­lat­ing T&T on be­com­ing an in­de­pen­dent na­tion. The Times of Lon­don pub­lished an eight-page sup­ple­ment on T&T’s in­de­pen­dence.

Chi­na recog­nised the coun­try on the same day of its in­de­pen­dence. De­spite the han­dover, Her Roy­al High­ness Queen Eliz­a­beth II re­ceived rous­ing wel­come to the coun­try.