RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A bush fire has de­stroyed one of Pe­nal’s most cher­ished land­mark homes, wip­ing out near­ly a cen­tu­ry of his­to­ry tied to the Tilluck­d­har­ry fam­i­ly, whose lega­cy has shaped gen­er­a­tions with­in the Pe­nal com­mu­ni­ty.

Stand­ing amid the ru­ins yes­ter­day, Dr Roy Tilluck­d­har­ry said the sprawl­ing wood­en house at Pe­nal Rock Road, built about 90 years ago by his par­ents Paul and Lil­ias Tilluck­d­har­ry, once stood as the heart of vil­lage life, serv­ing not on­ly as a fam­i­ly res­i­dence but al­so as a clin­ic, a rice mill, a co­coa dry­ing fa­cil­i­ty and a place of learn­ing.

He said the struc­ture, which had been aban­doned for the past six years, was re­duced to ash­es af­ter flames from a near­by bush fire spread rapid­ly across the prop­er­ty.

Speak­ing in an emo­tion­al in­ter­view, Tilluck­d­har­ry de­scribed the loss as sud­den and deeply per­son­al.

“What we saw is 90 years of mem­o­ries go up in flames. It re­al­ly af­fect­ed us. We all be­lieved we would come back one day,” he said.

The house had long been a land­mark in Pe­nal, grow­ing in size over the decades as the Tilluck­d­har­ry fam­i­ly ex­pand­ed to 12 chil­dren.

He said his fa­ther, Paul Tilluck­d­har­ry, a re­spect­ed ed­u­ca­tor who even­tu­al­ly be­came prin­ci­pal of Pe­nal Rock Pres­by­ter­ian School, opened his home to rel­a­tives and even young teach­ers from re­mote ar­eas.

Be­low the house op­er­at­ed the Cen­tral Store, which sold house­hold goods, fur­ni­ture, bi­cy­cles and over-the-counter med­ica­tion. Near­by stood a rice mill, while a co­coa house at the back fa­cil­i­tat­ed the dry­ing of co­coa and cof­fee har­vest­ed from the es­tate. Sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty was a thriv­ing cit­rus or­chard that sup­plied pro­duce to the Cit­rus Grow­ers As­so­ci­a­tion in Port-of-Spain.

But Dr Tilluck­d­har­ry said be­yond its eco­nom­ic role, the house was al­so a cen­tre of ed­u­ca­tion and ser­vice. A study room lit by gas lamps once ac­com­mo­dat­ed up to a dozen stu­dents at a time. He said many mem­bers of the fam­i­ly went on to be­come pro­fes­sion­als, in­clud­ing teach­ers, doc­tors, a phar­ma­cist, a ra­di­og­ra­ph­er and a busi­ness­man. With sev­er­al med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in the fam­i­ly, the home even­tu­al­ly be­came the base for the Paul Tilluck­d­har­ry Memo­r­i­al Clin­ic, of­fer­ing free health­care to vil­lagers long be­fore mod­ern pub­lic health sys­tems were wide­ly ac­ces­si­ble.

Dr Tilluck­d­har­ry not­ed that while no sig­nif­i­cant doc­u­ments were lost—hav­ing been re­moved over time—the emo­tion­al and his­tor­i­cal val­ue of the home can­not be re­placed.

The ex­act cause of the fire re­mains un­clear, though there are sus­pi­cions it may have orig­i­nat­ed from near­by land-clear­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

Tilluck­d­har­ry said a con­tain­er with traces of fu­el was found in the area, but it is not known whether it was linked to the blaze.

De­spite the dev­as­ta­tion, the fam­i­ly is now look­ing ahead, hop­ing to pre­serve the lega­cy of the home in an­oth­er way.

“We’re hop­ing to put some kind of memo­r­i­al,” he said, not­ing that dis­cus­sions are al­ready un­der­way among fam­i­ly mem­bers to ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tions of their par­ents and the role the house played in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Grand­son Bri­an Tilluck­d­har­ry said the out­pour­ing of grief from vil­lagers un­der­scores the home’s sig­nif­i­cance.

He said for decades, it was a place where births and deaths were record­ed, chil­dren were ed­u­cat­ed and fam­i­lies re­ceived care and sup­port.

While he ad­mit­ted the fam­i­ly should have done more to se­cure the house, Tilluck­d­har­ry said more should be done by the State to help pre­serve T&T’s her­itage.

An­oth­er son, Ralph Tilluck­d­har­ry, al­so said the re­mains left af­ter the fire are not just the mem­o­ry of a house, but the en­dur­ing im­pact of a fam­i­ly whose doors were al­ways open for an en­tire com­mu­ni­ty.