The 4,800 square foot property is being advertised for sale by Guillen Realty on their Facebook page at a cost of $2.3 million. A number of comments on the post expressed shock and surprise that the TTW building was being put on the market.

Some called for Government to assist while others committed to supporting any fundraisers.

TTW artistic director Albert Laveau, speaking in a telephone interview yesterday, said they have been renting the property since 2004 but were informed months ago that the 100-year-old building it would be put up for sale and they would have the first option to buy.

He reported that last week a couple of young women visited TTW and informed them that the property owner, a United States citizen, had passed on the property to them to deal with it.

Laveau reported that the TTW will have a meeting to discuss their next move.

“It is not easy for us to raise $2 million,” he added.

He said their fundraising efforts are still in the planning stages and they have a group of volunteers looking at it.

Laveau stressed the building is needed not only by the TTW “but the whole artistic community”. He said they accommodate the community and train children, teenagers and adults, have programmes in design and production and all the ancillary skills needed to professionally present plays. Veteran playwright Tony Hall hosts playwriting workshops at TTW, which recently put on a festival of new plays.

TTW also gives out 12 scholarships to the Secondary Schools Drama Festival and also to people in need.

Their activities include theatre in education where they remount plays from the English literature syllabus “B” for schools.

The space features a theatre in the backyard and a storage space for props and costumes.

They also make space available for people to present their art, have meetings, casting for films and for mas bands. Laveau said a university student was coming in next week to host a J’Ouvert band as part of her thesis.

“The facility is available to the entire community. And I am making this pitch to those who would like to see this thing community contact us and help us to buy the place,” he said.

TTW was founded by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott and others in 1959. It was originally a part of the Little Carib Theatre, located in Woodbrook, but after they split from them a few years later they were housed at Bretton Hall Hotel up to 1970.

Laveau said they then “moved all over the place”, including people’s living rooms, before settling at the Old Fire Station in Portof- Spain in 1988.

With the building of the National Library they had to leave that location and then moved to Rust Street, and then finally to Jerningham Avenue in 2004.

About the sale, Laveau said he was “not too concerned” and they “will find some place else if they have to”. The TTW, a non-profit organisation, receives an annual government subvention of $30,000.

Laveau said they receive support from the corporate sector, especially Massy Group, but it needs to be continually worked on and expanded.

Roger Roberts, member of rapso group 3canal, commented on the issue saying, “I think is very unfortunate that a cultural institution like that should be lost to the community.” “I think it would be a tragic loss to our cultural fabric,” he added.

He said great cities are made vibrant by art and when this happens businessmen can benefit.

“It is very unfortunate if the TTW loses their home. It is one more nail in the coffin of dying arts,” he added.

Roberts expressed hope that some type of intervention could be made so TTW would maintain ownership of the building.

Veteran actress and producer Penelope Spencer said she felt “real saddened and ashamed that building has to be put up for sale”.

She added that in a more progressive country, where arts and culture are considered, more would have been invested in the TTW. She expressed hope that Government would look into the issue.

“Trinidad Theatre Workshop has a legacy in this country with Derek Walcott and it would be a shame to let it die,” she said.

When contacted yesterday, Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts Dr Nyan Gadsby- Dolly told Sunday Newsday that it was the first she had heard of the issue. She said with this new development she expects that the TTW board will come and chat with her ministry about their options.

“Anything we can do to support, as one of the foundation drama associations that always push drama and training in theatre arts, we are willing to discuss options. Any way we can support we are willing to examine possibilities,” she said.

If you would like to assist the TTW contact them at 624-8502 or 220-0486.

Speaking on a programme yesterday on radio station i95.5 FM, she reported that the last count in 2015 was 309 socially displaced people in the cities.

“So what has happened the Ministry of Social Development under my leadership I decided we need to have a multi-sectoral collaborative approach to this,” she said.

She reported that on January 19 she convened a meeting which was attended by the ministers of national security, health, rural and local government and the mayors of Portof- Spain, San Fernando, Arima and Point Fortin.

She added that Chaguanas Mayor Gopaul Boodhan was invited but did not attend.

“That meeting was intended for us to agree on the different roles and responsibilities of each area and how we were going to chart the way forward to eliminate street dwelling from our streets in Trinidad and Tobago,” she said.

She explained that both Government and private sector will be working together. She reported that on Friday the working committee met and they have finalised their terms of reference and their major deliverable is an action plan to chart the way forward in eliminating street dwelling “and they have a time frame of six weeks in which to deliver that”.

“So I am expecting that by the end of March we should have Cabinet approval to proceed with this whole exercise,” she added.

“Politicians alone cannot do it; we must all put pressure on the administration to strengthen public health policies for cancer prevention, including policies on tobacco control, alcohol reduction, diet and physical activity,” she said in a statement to commemorate yesterday’s observance of World Cancer Day.

Persad-Bissessar said she had devoted a great amount of time and resources for detection and treatment of cancer during her tenure as prime minister, most notably through the construction of the National Oncology Centre at Mount Hope, “which, like so many other health projects, continues to remain at a standstill under the present administration.” “Cancer is a potential threat to all of us; no one is immune. That is why today I urge everyone to keep the conversation going so all of us will increase our awareness and knowledge of cancer,” she said.

Noting that Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba and Argentina have the highest mortality rates for cancer according to PAHO (Pan American Health Organisation), Persad-Bissessar said statistics from the National Cancer Registry show that 13,100 died from cancer in T&T between January 1998 and December 2007, an average of 1,456 each year or 121 cancer deaths each month (about four every day for the past nine years).

Referring to PAHO, she said 1.7 million cases of cancer would be diagnosed in the Caribbean and Latin America by 2030.

“With such alarming statistics, we need to demand that the government pays greater attention to cancer detection and treatment,” she said.

Persad-Bissessar said historian Angelo Bissessarsingh was the latest victim of the dreaded disease.

San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan, meanwhile, urged citizens to do their part in combating the disease through regular screenings and information.

“It is also imperative that the Ministry of Health increase their public awareness campaign to ensure that people are educated on what they can do to minimise the risk of contracting these diseases, and are getting tested regularly for early detection, to minimize the mortality rate,” he said. Noting that almost everyone in TT has been touched by cancer, Khan said it is estimated that over 1,000 persons will succumb to it in 2017, and many more will be diagnosed with the disease for the first time.

The MP, too, urged the Government to complete its construction of the National Oncology Centre.

“The onus is on this government to complete it and ensure that it is operational within the shortest period of time,” he said.

“The NOC is expected to offer a sustainable, equitable, comprehensive, and state-of-the art system of cancer control, along with a new focus on prevention and screening to reduce cancer incidence, quality assurance and a patient centered system of treatment and palliation.

“Not only would the NOC be directly responsible for saving countless lives of persons afflicted with cancer, but it would also allow further research to be conducted in finding ways to better diagnose and treat these diseases.”

Angelo had a cuddly, teddy- bearish quality. And he talked — to anyone, always eager to share either some obscure snippet about Trinidad and Tobago’s history, or a jokey story. He was at home with everyone, and so in turn they were at ease with him.

It began with talking: as a child, he asked endless questions, and his parents tried to answer them.

As it was fed, his curiosity grew. Then he was introduced to books, started collecting history books and then memorabilia — and after that the rest seems inevitable.

Angelo died, aged 34, of pancreatic cancer on February 2.

By the time it was diagnosed early in 2015, his illness was already terminal. So he left his job at the disaster management unit in Siparia, his hometown, and — supported by his large, close family — devoted the rest of his life to putting on paper as many as possible of the million and one stories he had to tell.

Angelo studied agribusiness at UWI, St Augustine, but began writing historical pieces at 20, and shortly afterwards took part in the research for an oral-history project at UTT that led to a book about a south Trinidad sugar estate, Golconda.

A few years later he self-published his own book, about local cemeteries.

After learning that his days were numbered, he produced two collections of historical writings, a book of historical fiction; and, still in the works, a book about local folklore. It was just as well he was so prolific while so young; almost as if he always knew his time here would be short.

Angelo’s major achievement was introducing many people to local history who would never have read it otherwise; some even imagined he was the first person to discover or to write such history.

But although he dug up and collected ancient artefacts, he rarely unearthed new information.

Angelo was always quick to pay tribute to the writers who paved his way. He himself was a popular historian, retelling old tales in an accessible and entertaining fashion, rather than analysing or questioning received wisdom (had he lived, he might have acquired that trait as he matured).

He used the internet to track down forgotten local books, which he quoted extensively, giving them a second life. He was very much a 21st-century historian in another sense, too: part of his genius was to use Facebook to publish snippets and stories that didn’t demand too much time or attention of his thousands of readers.

He also made full use of his engaging personality: affable, bright, blessed with the gift of the gab, he was the perfect historian for these times.

At home in any medium, he was generous with his time and knowledge, and an excellent interviewee, as well as posting material online in his Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago on Facebook.

In 2012 I asked him to start writing a Sunday Guardian column, and from then on we were friends; he would never come to town without dropping by to bring some thoughtful little gift: an odd, obscure book, a 19th-century coin that he knew would have a special significance.

It was an example of his greatest gift: not writing, but love, for this country and all its people, the things they have made and done and the culture they have created over the centuries.

As his name alone suggested, Angelo himself was made up of one of those ethnic mixtures probably found only in this country, and consequently didn’t have any of his own axes to grind (partly as a result, he sometimes took an unfashionably nostalgic view of the colonial past).

His lack of personal ethnic allegiances also meant he could and did get along with anyone, and that talent as much as his writings accounted for his huge popularity.

He received a national award and was made an honorary fellow of UTT last year; sadly, by then he was in hospital and was unable to accept the award in person.

Angelo bore his final illness with exemplary courage and grace, telling his followers and fans about its progress, and losing his cool only when they suggested some outlandish remedy.

He was happy to write about folklore, obeah and magic; but Angelo was a rationalist.

It was drugs and doctors that were keeping him alive, he pointed out sharply to those who suggested offbeat or spiritual remedies.

He beat the odds, living for precisely two years after his diagnosis, and was active almost until the end. By then he had earned his own place in history.

It is utterly ludicrous for WASA to be warning us to fix dripping faucets while their broken mains flood our streets and waste about 80 percent of the water produced by WASA.

The Minister of Public Utilities needs to open his eyes while he is being driven around. The chairman and board members of WASA need to wake up. How come I, and all of you can recognize dozens of leaking mains, and none in charge can see this? I mean, you are board members.

Is it that you actually do not see the amount of water wasting? Or do you see it and it does not connect with your brain that this is your responsibility? If we face a harsh dry season and run out of water, will you consider that this was your responsibility? There are five constantly running leaks within half a mile of where I live, and citizens have constantly reported these to WASA. Some enterprising reporter should investigate how many calls are required to get a leak repaired.

I call upon the Minister to wake up the board and instruct them to tell all their blind district engineers to locate and fix all the leaks now! I note you have just paid your contractors millions of overdue monies, so get them back to work and prevent our country running out of water because WASA, under all administrations, simply throws it all away.

And now to try to wash the bloodstains: Please understand that there is nothing sudden about what we are facing. It is just the upward sweep of the graph of the murders, and it will sweep upwards, with increasing undetected murders, for some time to come. This did not begin yesterday, and it will not end tomorrow, so stop fooling yourselves about hanging or praying, or our Prime Minister actually begging the boys to be a little nicer to each other.

When teenage girls are making babies whom they cannot care for, or educate, what do you think happens to those children? The boys sit by older boys who are spotters and runners for armed gangs, who are in the drug and other trades, and who treat murder as entertainment.

So what do the little boys of teenage mothers grow into? If there is nothing else in their lives but the gang, that is what they will grow into. For the few around who live in relatively stable homes within the gang areas, even their teachers make sure they challenge routine authority.

Let me explain: In 1985, we were setting up the stadium for an international friendly football match. Because it was a friendly, it was being held in the evening of a primary schools sports day. As the children were leaving the stadium via the marathon tunnel, a few of them walked on to the field— normal interest. A security guard told them politely “not on the field please”, and they all obediently began to walk off. This upset one of the teachers. She raised her voice imperiously: “Who say allyuh cyan go on de fiel’? Allyuh walk on the de fiel’ if allyuh want”! And the previously obedient children looked mockingly at the uniformed guard and strutted back on to the field. Those children would be in their thirties now, those who survived.

Do you understand the problem here folks? This year, pray for water, and for wisdom in understanding from where the blood is flowing.

As we’re in the Carnival season, I’m encouraging you to sing the next two sentences of this column with a MX Prime (Maximus Dan) voice and a “Full Extreme” beat in the background. We watched the UNC, clean out the treasury, but we jammin’ still… yes, we jammin’ still.

Now under the PNM, every day is a post-mortem, but we jammin’ still…

yes, we jammin’! And at the end of the day, these two major political parties in our democratic dictatorship are sitting in the background ignoring the population, and singing “dey-could-talk, but ‘wuk’ (radio version) dem”. In case you were unclear, unsure, or uncertain, let me tell you now that Trinbagonian politicians “doh business” because they thoroughly enjoy screwing over our citizens with the utter fecklessness of their governance.

As a result of rampant corruption on one side and abject cluelessness from both, the Trinbagonian population has to live in constant fear of criminals (suited, uniformed and non-uniformed), suffer job losses, pay higher online taxes, spend more money to fill up gas tanks, and get less items at the grocery for much more money. But try as hard as they like, even when “they raised the price of rum in the budget,” we now realise that Trinbagonians will still spend as much as necessary to have a good time.

I have always said that many of my compatriots are easily-manipulated sheep who are also barbaric (death penalty), lawless, backward and spineless (our only protest is to call into talk shows to spew ignorance), but maybe there’s some positivity in all of this. Maybe, just maybe, our ability to ignore the crime epidemic and the economic nose-dive in order to party illustrates resilience and the resistance of insanity. Maybe, just maybe, Trinbagonians could make it through the toughest times without breaking a sweat, and isn’t that the kind of temerity we were taught to have? I mean, where else could one find a society where a treasury could burn down without affecting the wider population’s festivities? If police officers, politicians and other ‘big pappies’ in society could destroy our country and then go out to enjoy their Carnival without a care in the world, why shouldn’t we also go out and have fun? If politicians cared anything about optics, they wouldn’t be out gallivanting in the country’s most expensive all-inclusive parties in the midst of a “recession” where more people are losing their jobs than any time in recent history. I recently heard some folks discussing the feasibility of banning fetes, or even Carnival entirely, to help reduce crime because apparently, criminals only rob, kidnap and murder at Carnival time. Well, if you find that to be ridiculous, there’s more: another person suggested that the threat of a State of Emergency for Carnival would encourage citizens to ‘snitch’ on criminals to save Carnival, which is (1) a great suicide mission when one considers the fact that society does not trust the police; and (2) the percentage of the population to be affected by such a ban is negligible by comparison.

And with all this talk of State of Emergency (SoE) being bandied about, who can justify the punishment of the citizens of Trinbago by the very crooked politicians and police service that have us in the mess we’re in? If the plan for the SoE is not to arrest and charge several politicians, business people, and police officers with corruption, drug smuggling and gun trafficking, it will be an exercise in futility. But seriously, after five years in opposition, the best crime plan this government could present to the people is a statement from the Prime Minister and a SoE? I guess they were “red and ready” for power and everything else besides effectively dealing with the country’s issues.

Believe it or not, I stopped watching local news over a year ago, and I know many people who also don’t.

It’s not because we don’t care about what’s going on, but especially for me, continuously listening to the lack of intelligence and constant idiocy of Trinbagonian politicians would have landed me at a mental institution; so instead, while everything in this count r y crumbles a r o u n d us, this Carnival, I, along w i t h m a n y o t h e r s , will definitely be jammin’ still… for our sanity.

This is a small room in a midrange hotel. It’s a clinical room, part of the hotel’s “spa”, a term which no longer owes much to its origins in the Belgian mountain town of that name which was famed for its healing waters.

It is now about women dressed in white hospital coats applying soothing treatments often involving seaweed and tropical fruit.

When I say it’s peaceful, that is not to say it is silent. It has, in fact, an unctuous aural background of recorded music that swirls, swells and ebbs. Perhaps it is the sound of whales singing songs of lost love or Tibetan monks playing nose flutes through a heavy cold. Whatever it is, the word that springs to mind is spooky, which is probably not how the therapists see it, but it’s so obscurely, brain-foggingly intense that it makes you want to snigger like a schoolboy at a funeral.

I am here at this Caribbean branch of the worldwide Spooky Spas network to have a massage. Not my idea, you understand. It’s a common by-product of having a wife who goes in for this sort of thing. “You should try it too. It might make you less grumpy.” There are, of course, various kinds of massage, from the therapeutic kind on offer here, which uses oil containing the homeopathic wonder-herb arnica, to the altogether less innocent random rubs offered by untrained, unlicensed, uninhibited and unprincipled women as you laze on the beach on your sunlounger.

Make all the rationalisations you like, and castigate that sniggering school boy, but the male of the species gets a kick out of this kind of thing that women either don’t or choose not to admit. My first experience of massage was many years ago and work-related, having been offered a free one by a woman who had just set up a small business and wanted me to write about it (as a form of free advertising – journalists get that all the time). So I turned up at this woman’s house and five minutes later I was naked on her therapeutic couch with my nose jammed down a hole at one end. The nose business aside, this was a not unwelcome way to spend a quiet Tuesday afternoon, but it needed huge reserves of professional discipline to stay focused on the assignment rather than just succumbing to a sensation that could veer off onto an entirely different road if you’re not careful.

However, that was then and this is now. Different decade, different location, different practitioner. This woman is a petite, slim Asian woman — Korean, she tells me. Her conversation couldn’t be further from suggestive; within five minutes she has launched into a well-rehearsed routine about religion and the repression of Christianity in Muslim countries.

She’s working the same handfuls of flesh and inflicting the same occasional flashes of pain as the enthusiastic amateur all those years ago, but she hardly seems to notice what her hands are doing. This is not a massage, it’s an exercise in preaching to a captive audience. As it happens, she is preaching to the converted, but no matter how often I grunt my agreement (which is about as expressive as you can get with your face squeezed into a small plastic orifice), she ploughs on with the tales of persecution, torture and murder. It’s a good thing she seems to like me, because in this kind of situation there would be not much you could do about it if, Bond film-style, she placed a scorpion under your modesty towel and induced the most excruciating death.

So, my masseuse is a missionary, telling tales of Jesus as I lie like putty in her hands. She’s taking it all very seriously – and it is a serious subject.

While the world in what used to be regarded as Christian countries frowns upon any anti-Muslim sentiment, even to the extent of merely sticking up for ourselves, atrocities are committed against our fellows in places where they don’t receive the instant worldwide coverage that accompanies a sneeze from the White House or Downing Street. And we’re supposed to keep quiet about it.

The increasingly non-religious, even anti-religious attitude that pervades our society is driving good people underground because their message of tolerance is not reciprocated.

Big trouble is just around the corner: worldwide trouble that is either going to wipe out one great religion and leave the world at the mercy of another, or result in a return to faith for the millions of non-believers who currently think there is no higher authority than themselves. And the message will be delivered not by p r i e s t s or polit i c i ans , but by humb l e , low-profile people such as my Korean masseuse.

What sets us off on the trek has also remained constant ‘better living conditions’ we call it as either economic pressure or oppression, racist, religious or oppression, racist, religious or cultural move us outward – and the expectations too, the grass will definitely be greener elsewhere.

And at the end of the journey comes the settlement involving those who had come before us and who had forgotten that they too had arrived at the end of a journey, and who have now assumed that this land is theirs to be defended against all intruders. So the painful struggle, the push and pull continues as some venture to welcome and to extend hospitality while others recoil in fear of the unknown and the different.

The Exodus experience was seminal in the creation of the People of God. A motley band of slaves of different ethnicities escape oppression and follow a charismatic leader who holds them in the desert for 40 years during which, through hunger, thirst, confusion and nostalgia, they come to know themselves as the People of God.

Every people, every person must make this Exodus journey from false security through naked trust into communion and community. Few of us undertake that journey willingly; circumstances move us out of our comforting falsehoods into the light of Truth.

This is the opportunity of this phase in our journey as we are jolted by executive orders and recession and the failure of those institutions that were supposed to protect us from change into a frightening world where the reference points have disappeared.

Who will be our New Moses leading us from darkness into light? The usual ones disappoint, and the desert is increasingly hostile. This is the moment to hear once again the call to be light ourselves.

Because our civilisations have had the benefit of over two centuries of the presence of the Light of the world, our journey does not merely recycle back into the old circles of despair.

The New Moses goes before us and walks with us on this uncharted phase of our journey.

But we are not passive followers whose task is to grumble and ask for more; we are tasked with being ourselves light for others, salt, giving flavour and zest for those who walk the road with us.

This is a moment to become what we are, the People of God on pilgrimage towards our true homeland where the only security needed is the willingness to love. We cannot continue to pretend that salvation will come from the almighty dollar or the foreign-flavoured dialect that promises paradise without pain. This is the moment when we look with fresh hearts at those around us in all their apparent differences and recognise a brother, a sister; a member of the family who takes its name from the Father in heaven. This is the only antidote to fear and violence.

I remarked then that these were like breaths of fresh air in a stifling political climate and also created a connection with the people. Today I express my appreciation to the Prime Minister for deciding to resume these conversations.

There are now so many more reasons for the leader of the nation to step out of the ivory tower and come down to the level of the street and feel the pulse of the people through frank and open discussions with the average citizen.

It is more than necessary in the present realities of life in TT , when we are losing the sense of security, when there is so much anxiety among the people that many are daily losing their grip on sanity.

Case in point is the frightening stance taken by a leading light in our country, who has resorted to calling for guns to be placed in the hands of ordinary citizens as a response to crime.

There is no need to enunciate the multiple issues facing us; from the murder rate to the fast developing mayhem stemming from the executive orders of the President of the US, already having a domino effect on global life.

Our citizens are running around like headless chickens as they try to cope with the present drama that is life in TT .

Economic pressures, unemployment, pockets of protest ranging from failed negotiations to poor school conditions, kidnappings, murder and the list goes on.

Indeed, we are in the grip of general confusion that requires our leadership to clearly articulate measures that will provide a sense of assurance that we are not falling apart. The country sits on the brink of a disaster and the population is holding its breath, expecting some relief.

Recent pronouncements from people in high places have done little to allay the fears of the poor man that life will continue to be unbearably difficult. This is the message being filtered through and many prophets of doom, bent on making the Government look bad, are driving the country into a panic state.

I look forward to our Prime Minister rising to the occasion and stepping forward to provide a steadying hand. He has demonstrated that he has the testicular fortitude to stand up for what is right. He now needs to show that he is standing up for the people.

The average man in the street needs to hear his voice, giving us the assurance that in spite of the difficult times we face, we can weather this storm as a united people. The true plan for surviving these trying circumstances lies in the bosom of the people.

Build back that connection and let’s have the conversations. Together we can save our beautiful country.

Garvin Cole Tobago

But the question remains: is it willing to evolve? It seems that it’s time to change the band’s name.

There are a number of female pan players in the group, as there are in all steelbands. It’s time we get with the times and be “correct.” The name Playboys/Playboyz needs to be changed and Pan Trinbago should encourage pan orchestras to be gender neutral in their identification. Of course old habits and customs die hard, but there is precedent; recall “Gay Desperadoes.” Let us honour the achievements of the female pan players by being considerate and thoughtful. After all, it can be argued that they are saving the steel pan movement with their participation.

Stephen Patrick Pt Cumana