The Frank Seyon Story

Frank Seyon said something like this, “We would like to invite you to attend a meeting at UNO Advertising on Long Circular Road to discuss the possibility of using some of the characters you created in Calabash Alley such as ‘Danny King’, ‘Mabel’, ‘Pappa George’ and so on. This is going to be something really big. It will take Trinidad by storm.” I usually try to get away from meetings as much as possible but this one was right up my alley in more ways than one.

Some of the other big boys had major commitments that they could not get away from, so it ended up with just a few of us. Frank Seyon explained that for years the illegal game of whe-whe had caused quite a bit of trouble, fights and even murders, in Trinidad especially when they “buss the mark” in the cemetery on whatever “turf” the winning number was declared.

Frank continued, “Now the Gtech Company of America will introduce to the country a game of chance which we shall call ‘Play Whe’ that will be seen on television. Not only that but the public will be able to choose their own lucky numbers for a big Lotto draw every week. If there is no winner, the value would increase.”

Somehow, the Strolling Players’ input with the Calabash Alley characters never got off the launching pad. But two members, Matthew Collingwood and Gerard Phillips, wore the full yellow Play Wey Chinese costumes with masks covering the whole head, and distributed flyers in the streets of Port-of-Spain and Chaguanas.

Also Stafford Alexander and Carl Kirton were in TV commercials depicting guys who played their lucky numbers and became millionaires. Frank was right. Long lines of people were everywhere waiting to play their lucky numbers in “Play Whe”.

There are no more “fights and murders” associated with whe-whe but it is still flourishing, bigger than ever. Today, while the Lottery Board is paying 25 to 1, the whe-whe banker is dishing out 30 to 1 using the same names and numbers of the official legal draw. According to a census in 1810, there were 22 Chinese males who “lived in misery in Cocorite, making their living selling charcoal, oysters and crabs.” Whe-whe or Pakka Piu probably started with these early immigrants and has become ingrained as part and parcel of the Trini psyche.

Many persons think of Frank Seyon only as a businessman but in 1965, he and other young artistes such as Greg Marfan, Trevor Cardinal and others had begun to experiment on their art styles under the guidance of the master artist Mr M P Alladin. Two years later, Frank was one of the elite Caribbean students to be enrolled at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).

“This was the cultural shock of my life,” Frank wrote. “It was during the Hippie movement — the austere hard edge mechanical style of Pop, Op and Minimal Art of Andy Warhol. Frank Stella and Jose Stella. Add a heavy dose of studying the history of works by Paul Klee, Kandinsky, Matisse, Gauguin, Cezanne, Van Gogh and countless of the masters. Throw in the wake up experience of drawing ‘live’ nude models in studio.”

Frank was one of the Trinidadians who started the world famous Caribana Festival in Toronto. The founding chairman, Charles Roach and the Caribbean Arts chair Henry Gomez presented Frank Seyon with the CARIBANA PIONEER CERTIFICATE in honour of his role in creating the Caribana Festival in 1967. Frank’s certificate is dated June 28, 2009.

The famous French painter Paul Gaugin (1848-1903) had tremendous interest in primitive art which led him to settle in the South Pacific islands. He said, “Art is either a plagiarist or a revolutionist.”