Penal community upgrades Valley Harps panyard
South Trinidad's Valley Harps Steel Orchestra now has a refurbished and upgraded home at Sunrees Road, Penal, thanks to community activism.
The concrete structure, decorated using recycled painted strips and bits of old oil drums, was opened on Thursday afternoon.
The band's manager Clyde Flanders recalled "getting involved in this steelband thing," just after graduating from secondary school. The band went on to participate in the 1968 Panorama competition. placing second in San Fernando. In 1969, it placed 13th in the country and performed as a guest act at the final.
"In dem times, whenever Trinidad Valley Harps moved from Penal, the place used to be like a ghost town. Everybody (used to go Port of Spain). And in dem times, we didn't have public transport like now, (so) people used to ride on the trucks, who could hustle a ride here and there..."
Flanders eventually migrated to the US to work. But as Marvin "Swappi" Davis said in his song Jumbie Head, the sound of the steelpan is quite infectious. Flanders said he could not stop thinking about TT culture and the steelband.
"Every weekend, I used to tell my buddies if I could just jump in a car and drive down to Trinidad this weekend, I would drive down to Trinidad. They said, 'Boy, you is a madman?'" he recalled laughingly.
"They (my workplace) had some oversized drums...Our band (ended up being) the first band to bring down those...So I went to the stock room and I saw the drums were being used to store hazardous waste. I told the storekeeper, 'If I could get some of these drums to Trinidad, my buddies would be thankful, inno.'"
By Narissa Fraser
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday
