Tony Deyal | Constance and the wear it all

You hear the name 'Whitehall' and you expect grandeur and history combined in an awesome presence. When I was there, it had that. The awesome presence was Dr Eric Williams and the history were dusty copies of his works in the rat-infested basement. What I didn't know is that while Whitehall is a building in Trinidad and for a long time was the Office of the Prime Minister, the place where Cabinet meetings were held and visiting dignitaries were met and hosted, it is really a road in England.

It was the kind of off-key fact that would have pleased my colleague and friend, broadcaster, cultural activist and archivist, Constance Mctair. When I first met her, she was the dynamo in charge of the Government Broadcasting Unit (GBU), the most active arm of the Public Relations Division of the prime minister's office.

It was in 1968, just six years after Trinidad and Tobago became independent and the fire and fervour, the pride and purpose, were still very much alive and turning night into day not just to record the evolving history of our country, the speeches of Dr Williams, or even the lengthy parliamentary debates, but to document, store and keep forever the culture of our country. Everything was important - the folk songs, chants, calypsos, prose, poetry, stories and events, including our annual carnival, were all grist for the GBU mill. This was how I stepped briefly into the picture.

I lived in the deep south of the country and, after getting my 'A' (A'Levels) started teaching in a nearby secondary school. In-between the job and the growing up, the sports, games and mayhem, even the drinking and partying, I found time to read and write. I would arrive home, sometimes at three in the morning, and try to write something or read before falling asleep.

HEIGHT OF EXCELLENCE

There were times when I left a card game in a club or wake, rushed home, showered and went to work. I had written a few poems and took the bold step of asking the features editor in the Guardian whether he would print any. He passed it on to the poet associated with the paper at the time, a St Lucian named Derek Walcott, whose In A Green Night had blown me away, mainly because my reading until then had been confined to the English Romantic poets, and I had never imagined that a Caribbean writer could reach such a height of excellence so early in his life.

Dennis Scott, the Jamaican poet, had taught me English, and while I learnt a lot from him, I heard something from Derek that stayed with me forever. On a crackling telephone line, Derek told me that I should stick to my local or dialect poetry and forget the English imitations. I am not sure exactly how I was able to get in touch with Constance, but I went to her office in the imposing Trinidad House, a leftover from the destroyed and defunct West Indies Federation, and found a rabbit warren of tapes stuffed into overflowing cupboards and people hustling frantically to cover different events.

She stunned me by agreeing to record my first poem in that genre, something called Wake Tonight. I got TT$15 for it and later spent the money with my friend and neighbour, the artist Knolly Greenidge, who I had stopped as he staggered down the street heading home and made him listen to it.

On my first day as a student at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad, Constance ran the poem on the radio. This earned me the nickname 'Poet'. I then became chairman of the hall and had to help my Jamaican and Guyanese friends, stranded in Trinidad during the 1970 Black Power disruption, to cope. I had got a scholarship to go to study journalism in Canada, found that the paralysed government department responsible for scholarships had not sent in my application, and so ended up for a year at Whitehall, in the corridor of the basement that housed the Press Section of the Public Relations Division, and there met Constance again.

GOT TO KNOW HER BETTER

We were all busy, so even though I said hello to Constance, it was not until our first Whitehall Christmas Party that I got to know her a little better. While we waited for the descent from the higher level of the building for Dr Williams, I took over the DJ duties, and a laughing Constance shouted to me about my choice of music and my tendency to fade the song I was playing to bring in the next one. I was surprised.

Up to that time, she was a no-nonsense kind of person, and I was in awe of her. We danced together, laughed and drank. Later, when I returned from Canada in 1974, and much later, in 1991 when I became the chief information officer in the Robinson government, Constance and I got to know each other better. She had not changed. Her interest and commitment to the national culture had not diminished, but the lack of support continued to get her down.

We recently kept in touch on Facebook and her knowledge of our past and dedication to our culture had not diminished, but I felt the deep disappointment that replaced, in many of us, the euphoria of Independence.

Constance Mctair was cremated on Wednesday, April 25. There has been no tribute to her or mention of her work in the national media. The Bocas Lit Fest, which is meant to recover our lost past and safeguard the future, also started Wednesday. It is as ironic as our Whitehall being a building and the real Whitehall being a road. Constance would have found that funny, illuminating and prophetic.

- Tony Deyal was last seen reading a Constance Mctair Facebook post on a newspaper quote of the prime minister: "It's really frustrating to be held responsible ... but you don't have the wear it all to say get on with the job."