TIME OUT IN TRINIDAD - 1950s - Pt. 23 - Farewell to Trinidad

All footage contributed by Sooty1312. This video is not to be copied without the consent of the operator of this channel. Sadly, this brings to an end the Time Out in Trinidad series. There will still be a few more videos coming as I cull the three hours of files to find anything I've missed. Also stay tuned for more exciting films as the Camito sails from Port of Spain, through the British West Indies, to Britain.

One cannot adequately describe the Expatriate in the Colonies. They were a migrant group of people from Britain who fanned out across the British Empire to engage in and contribute to her prosperity. Trinidad provided a wonderful life for these families with housing, medical services, provisioning and in some cases, vehicles provided by the companies that hired them. For most, as surely as they arrived, they would eventually leave. Some stayed for many, many years. Some even took up permanent residence. Most, however, returned home at the completion of their contracts.

Remember that these families had built a life for themselves in the colony and many grew very fond of that lovely island called Trinidad. Parting was sweet sorrow for them. More so, their departure also brought sadness, and in some cases, unemployment for the household staff these families hired. In many cases, the servants and yardboys grew very attached to their employers and their departure brought an uncertain future for them. In this film you can see a somewhat lost servant standing as this family bids their farewell to their friends, to T&TEC and to Trinidad.

The two boys in this film, David and Graham, still fondly remember the land where they spent three happy years at T&TEC. David returned to Trinidad in 1988 with his wife and two sons to find an independent Trinidad that bore little or no resemblance to the beautiful colony he once knew.

With its wealth of natural resources, Trinidad has struggled throughout the 1990s and the 2000s to curb its massive crime rate and rampant corruption. The roads in these films bear no resemblance at all to the traffic choked multi-lane motorways that exist today. The railways are gone. Oil production has moved offshore. The sugar industry has long since collapsed. The beautiful countryside cannot be enjoyed by tourists as robberies, murders and kidnappings continue to rise.

With the election of Kamla Persad Bissessar, hope has returned to Trinidad and only the years ahead will tell us how successful her government will be in solving some of Trinidad's problems. Everyone knows that one cannot return to Colonial days. The past is the past. But every Trinidadian living there today deserves a life that includes the peace and security evident in these films.