Swing and Sway Trinidad Way, 1960s

[Music] the Holland Evening Sentinel presents swing and sway Trinidad way Trinidad Tobago Grenada you can imagine now that you are in tropical Trinidad in the beautiful Caribbean Trinadad Tobago and Grenada will be the spots that we will visit today down here in Trinidad about 13 of the people are Indian Hindus and Muslims 1/3 are negro and 1/3 are Cosmopolitan or a mixture this is a scene along the road where you see a sugar Plantation they have wonderful crops of this kind down there these boys are out on a Sunday having fun with their little Dunkey and cart a poor Dunkey has to work all week in the fields but here he has fun with these boys just outside of Port of Spain we find this field where the boys are playing ball and on the hillside a Catholic Convent and school this is the Catholic church in Port of Spain some girls here getting ready to go into the service in Port of Spain you will find a great many churches of different kinds besides the Hindu and the Muslim they have many Protestant churches and a good many Catholic churches but right here we have a little picture of the harbor it's a great shipping Port the Port of Spain takes in many boats from South America and going toward North America it is a sort of a Melting Pot for the entire world here there are storage sheds for products right here you see one of the trees outside of the church which is a church of England that is an immortel tree you also find many flamboyant trees and frangy pangies down here they are most colorful and will add pleasure to your visit the salmon tree an import from India whose roots are as wide as the limbs spread out and here are poinsetta tropical flowers in the botanical gardens where the government house is located these botanical gardens hold many uh beautiful and exotic plants this is a better view of the government house in the background you can see the low mountains many of these uh Islands down here have considerable mountains that run up to around 3,000 ft this is the government building the seat of government for the Caribbean Federation now here is the Sonic Hall on the hill and just below it you will find a mlim church the spires stick toward the sky and are very beautiful cart on the street is typical and of course you'll want to drop into a nightclub airong and see the exotic dancer this happens to be a place they call the marimer of which the manager is Mr as sing this exotic dancer will show you a few of the movements they go through with their wonderful calypso music we go on a little bit later to various other types of dance a steel band will furnish some music between the AXS the dancers get up and do their share of the calypso this is a steel [Music] band and eventually we come to the Shango or Bottle Dance where they use broken glass on the floor and they crawl through it jump on it and have the theory that if you are in the right frame of mind you cannot be [Music] hurt [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I [Music] [Music] a Hindu boy here does a few athletic [Music] tricks [Music] n [Music] now this is an East Indian type of [Music] dance [Music] now the limbo is also called the stick dance and in this particular dance will dance along with their feet forward and leaning back not touching the floor go under of stick which is only a few inches above the floor this is one of the most difficult and the most popular dances down done in this [Music] area in the limbo the stick is progressively [Music] lowered now here we are with one of the natives cutting coconuts in order to obtain the cpra you'll notice how he uses that big machete and cuts those with his hand beneath the coconut he says he's never cut his hand the Coconuts are picked up here dried and the cpra is extracted I guess he's going to go on cutting this forever well here we see a boy and girl these are Happy Days according to the tape on her forehead she explained flowers in the sea a beautiful area on Tobago overlooking the Sea Caribbean Sea the water is very clear and blue of Many Shades now this is a flower which is not common around these parts it's known as a cocoa Lily these are some happy boys and girls walking along the road this is a typical home on the islands of Tobago which is a short distance from Trinidad the yellow pooy tree is often seen on Tobago and other islands in the area I might say that all three of these islands are British Islands although they now have the Caribbean Federation and are the same as many other British possessions here a couple of fishermen come in this is at arnest Veil one of the popular resorts on Tobago the fish are Bonita and Barracuda there are a lot of rocks here in the harbor beautiful water for swimming the coral rocks make a good place to go snorkling this Gent cleans up the fish and takes them up so that they can have them ready for dinner in the evening I think arnest veil has one of the most beautiful settings of any of the resorts that I visited in the area it's run by a britisher and he certainly knows his beautiful spots the site of Fort St James you will note was set out in 1666 that's a long time ago it's made from a volcanic clay which is now turned to stone Stone and it seems just as solid as the day it was set up the old English Cannon are here originally of course they took it away from the Frenchmen this is looking out over the sea from this fort the sea is ever rolling here in the Caribbean but it's a gentle roll because while we were there we saw very little of any heavy winds beaches of black sand part black sand volcanic sand and white sand this is Mr Grover Hamilton in an old Moravian Church an abandoned church where he makes his home all through these islands they have pipes running up over the hills and at these Taps you can get a drink of water also natives use them to make their bass now these beans with a Scarlet pod are very unusual and we'll make a closeup so you can see what they look like blackeyed beans I imagine they're good to eat but I was unable to obtain any information on them this is Joseph's robe which is a common flower down in that area very beautiful Joseph's Coat of Many Colors this is a coffee tree and right near here there's some cocoa beans cocoa beans here with the PODS of course inside notice they come right from the trunk of the tree don't grow out in the limbs when they get very yellow they're ready to open now the phod dendrum is a popular vine down there and is commonly used for house plants in the north and here we see ortel orange flowers many beautiful flowers in the trees there immortel is perhaps one of the most beautiful the aisle of paradise bird is out here in the distance and that house is the caretaker of the island it's a sanctuary on little Tobago and right near by is Space hiide Village and on up at the end of the island we come to Charlottesville here they have a very nice Beach and a number of new homes have been built here you can see the beach here I tried the swimming at Charlottesville and it's excellent the bay here is deep enough for a good many large boats to come in however this end of the island is very little used this looks like a motel but it is a cluster of native quarters women carry everything on their heads now we're going to the goat races here this gentleman arranged the goat race and it took place right near Samuel Chance's bar Mr chance is here in person as he was one of the officials of the goat Racing Association this is a big thing down in the island that I can't say that the goat race itself is a very big thing but you'll have a chance to see this is the goat race they have the goat on a rope here and run them along if the goat gets a chance of course he has dinner in between races once in a while they have to do them over again because the goat gets away and runs out into the bush but we didn't have that particular trouble on this day now if you want to see Calypso the way it's done by the natives we'll show you a bit of it right here we saw some children playing right near this goat race which is on the buku Bay and reef in that area so we thought we'd get a few samples of the real calypso so as done by the youngsters way down in Tobago land Tobago though a very small island is located only a matter of 20 minutes or so from Trinidad and it's a Charming place to [Music] visit [Music] now this is a Santa Maria Hotel on beautiful Grenada and of course Grenada is one of my favorite places to visit once in a while they have to bring up the fire truck when they have a water shortage the clerk in the hotel at the time I was there with this M Clark a beautiful brown girl of the [Music] Caribbean and just a short distance from this hotel we find the Water Works way up on a high hill established in an Old Fort overlooking St George's you notice that volcanic clay is used here in making this fort which was probably built 3 or 400 years ago standing today and in good condition this gentleman went with us through this Old Fort to point out some of the things of interest in fact we visited other forts with him and here we are looking off into the mountainous area just a short distance away from the fort down the hill this is the home for the Aged down there we look out on St George's which is right on the Caribbean with a very fine [Music] Harbor now this is a iguana my friend wson managed to catch this down at Nicholas Nicholls Place Nicholls has a large Plantation there this iguana is uh a leaf eater he lives in the trees and wopson captured him so that I could get this movie picture the natives there eat the Iguana but uh on this particular occasion I didn't have a chance to taste iguana because I was gone before they got enough for a meal the Iguana really looks like some prehistoric monster now they spray a little water on this iguana and you can see him lick out at the water apparently he was a bit thirsty if you watch real close as we get along with the picture you'll notice that when the Iguana is picked up by wson wson made the mistake of placing his hand too near his mouth and the Iguana grabbed him I don't think he was seriously hurt but he was a bit scared now watch him grab him well here we are right in the harbor of Grenada I was invited to go on a trip here there are very few tourists that get into Grenada I was invited by these gentlemen to go on a trip with them out through the Grenadines I will introduce various andry of them Commodore steel you have just seen you will see him again in a moment our host on the trip was Commodore Maguire fire it just happened that I was the only white man on this trip these people who were on the trip are what they call Cosmopolitan down there that is they were mixtures of other races of brown skin they were fine gentlemen and they took us on a wonderful trip that is they took me on a wonderful trip there's Commodore steel we are off now along the coasta ways this is the commodor son and various other members of the crew went along for the ride Mr McIntyre down there is uh looking at us you'll see a closeup of him in a moment he is the Ford agent at St George's both commodor steel and Nicholas nichels own large plantations Mr nichels who's steering the boat there has a plantation of 700 acres and 83 people work for him the Commodore who now has the helmet has a plantation of 500 Acres or more as we sail along the coast we'll get a few glimpses here perhaps of the kind of country were in some of the people close up there of Mr McIntyre there we see both nickels and steel so we're going along here down to Bo aure where Mr nichels here goes in and brings out the supplies for this trip a weekend trip into the Grenadines you may notice here that he has various and sunry dishes and a very small suitcase a machete and some coconut some ice no matter where you go it's inevitable to have the pop the coconut and the machete the coconut juice is chilled in the nut you drink the juice and throw the coconut overboard now this is bro being pulled aboard this is Mr nickel's son he calls him bro quite a swimmer he swam a couple hundred yards to get out where we were but he didn't go on the trip he'll go back after a while not very far from bozure we come to a spot that I named peekaboo Beach it had a beautiful little beach in here where we could go and swim when we wished and we did so often right there is peekaboo Beach and I think Nicholas Nicholls will probably keep on calling this peekaboo Beach it's dark sand volcanic type water is uh warm well Nicholas nichel here is fishing and lo and behold he didn't have to fish very long and we hooked a kingfish and Mr McIntyre is reeling him in there and here he's pulling him in by line they had a 30 lb King on here this the way they land them down in that country made a enough fish for all for the voyage of course someone had the idea of throwing out the line again and next time we came in with something but it was a mere minnow so that gives you some idea of the size that's the way they eat sugar cane just bite it off the stalk this is a typical inner Island boat some very nice little boats there now the Grenadines out here a pretty rough and rugged country they're rocks standing up from the sea here as if they were the tops of mountains and they probably are very beautiful to look at and in some places there are excellent beaches we only went out here for one day so we didn't go too far into the grenades but as you can see the pictures look Jumpy the weather was rather rough this was a Sailing Boat about 30 4 ft long and uh it had a motor besides the sail so we use the sail and sometimes we use the motor [Music] too that Island there had one house up on the side of it and I think one man lived on the island he probably had others helping him there we saw a good many goats on the island [Music] everybody's happy beautiful weather good Companions and nice sailing rugged Shoreline here [Music] la [Music] a now we are coming back to the town of St George here we see the espan a as we sail along toward the [Music] harbor we sail around here and come in view the Santa Maria as seen from the sea the sail is coming down they're running on the motor now [Music] another view of the town as we come into the [Music] harbor we're along the kinage the fort is on the hill a sea turtle that's been brought in to eat they catch a good many of those down there a short distance away there's a beautiful waterfall in the harbor there's this Banana Boat loading bananas for Germany the pier and Jetty under construction here they're building a million doll pier in Jetty as the main one was destroyed here in the hurricane Janet in 1955 that's a good scene of the harbor [Music] there Uncle Johnny Uncle Johnny Branch lives back in the Hills aways not too far from St George's and that's his home up there he has made a good living here on this Plantation for years he has oranges looking into a tree we see a bees nest up here this place is known as true blue now it's been changed into a resort area and some people from Venezuela plan to come up here and build homes for their folks so they can come up here enjoy the climate here are some old French cannons Uncle Johnny picked up on the island he has a good many relics this is a wailing gun back in the days when Uncle Johnny used to do a little wailing he says the whales have long since disappeared this is his howler monkey here you see an old hunting horn that was used many years ago a conch shell is used as a dinner call this is emiline his daughter and granddaughter you can gr pineapples on this kind of land especially when it's irrigated perhaps one of the most beautiful flowers the flamboyant you find this tree located in many parts of Grenada it's quite easy to obtain salt down here and perhaps this is the oldest known method of making salt merely Pond it up and let it evaporate in the hot sun of the Caribbean this is an old abandoned Lighthouse up here on the hill one that's been there many years not too far away we find a sugar plant you'll see them bringing in the sugar cane from the hills and piling it up here and eventually the cane is ground up so that they can extract sugar now when they do this the cane has a residue which is a thick molasses and this is also used by making it into rum rum is a popular drink in the islands of the Caribbean truck after truck comes in and the Hoist picks off these heavy loads of sugar cane piles it up ready for use by the mill there are several of these small sugar refineries on an island like Grenada which is only 25 M long and roughly 15 to 20 mi wide there's also a population there of 95,000 people practically all of them colored there are many beautiful little islands off of the coast one Island Here is known as Hog Island some of these islands have excellent beaches but I don't know of any of them that have their own water supply anyone going out there would probably have to supply water which is plentiful on the island of Grenada now this is a large old water wheel long since abandoned part of a sugar mill not too far from that sugar wheel we eventually came to an experimental Farm I went to this experimental Farm here where they had cattle and chickens and so forth and saw this young man on the left who was a college graduate and that's Nicholas nckl a plantation owner on the right talking to him beautiful country and I hope you can see it St George's is a nice little town and although there are not very many hotels there there are a good many places where one can find guest houses here the natives are coming around the boat which has brought in some fish to sell That's A View From The Mountaintop of St George's and down below those regular looking buildings were used during the war and now a school is there this is the Spider Lily found in the Hills a wild flower and here is the government house in St George's and its surroundings a beautiful location here overlooking the harbor another Old Fort and a very unusual type of cactus you'll see here long slim stems growing out of this Old Fort not too far away from there uh they had a guest house run by Mr and Mrs Curtis Hopkins and from there they had a lot of beautiful views over the harbor and also toward the grand ants which is an enormous Beach more than a mile long very beautiful white sandy beach which also had a beach house connected with it where you could have lunch and here you see some the guest houses uh nearby the Hopkins place the beautiful clear cariban what a place to spend a [Music] vacation this film has been shown for your pleasure by the Holland Evening Sentinel a Phill Rich production