A short story of Sybil Atteck (1911-1975)
Today in Trinidad the people who remember Sybil Atteck are diminishing with time. There is an effort under way by her nephew Keith Atteck to write a biographic work that highlights Sybil and her contribution to art in Trinidad and Tobago and provide a historical context to the Chinese family that surrounded her and nurtured her passion for art.
Sybil Marjory Atteck was born on February 3, 1911 on her grandfather’s estate in Tableland, South Trinidad. She was the third girl child to her parents Philip Charles Atteck and Elizabeth Atteck (née George). Her elder sisters were Olive Atteck and Olga Atteck. She was followed by her next younger sister Rita Atteck who was born in 1912. The family were sent off to find their own way on a piece of land in Rio Claro purchased by their father to establish a cocoa estate. This estate was next to the de Verteuil Estate. I am still trying for find out exactly where this was.
The four girls were soon followed by three more girls and one son. In Rio Claro the children were home schooled. The family eventually reached eleven children. Sybil’s best subject was art and this interest was established early in her life. Granny George encouraged the family to move to Port of Spain as the girls were now of age to go to convent school. The family moved the children, mother and grandmother to Port of Spain in 1924 where the eldest three girls went to Bishop Anstey in Port of Spain.
Sybil’s desire to be an artist was tempered with the family’s dire financial situation after the 1930’s arrival of the witches’ broom and black pod diseases that whipped out much of the cocoa harvests and put the family in debt to their Chinese creditors. In September of 1930 Sybil got her first job at the Experimental Station in St. Augustine an she would go onto to other jobs before becoming an professional artist. May of her siblings also went to work all to help support the family. It was in 1930 that Sybil first exhibited her art as part of one of the first exhibitions sponsored by the “Society of Independents” that was formed a year earlier in 1929.
Let’s fast forward to 1960 - 1962. By now Sybil is a founding member of the Trinidad Art Society. She has studied art in England, Italy, Peru and the United States. She is the first West Indian artist to have exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. Sybil Atteck is a professional art teacher and mentor to many local artists, and has done major art exhibitions nationally and internationally, completed many commissioned works including murals, and is in the prime of her career. Trinidad is on the brink of independence. Sybil is involved in selecting the art works for the opening of the Hilton Hotel and she is on the committee to develop the symbols of the nation. With the help of her brother Philip Atteck and his wife Helen Atteck they open an art gallery and flower shop at the Hilton Hotel, and Sybil is deeply involved in the efforts of the Trinidad Art Society as the Art Society President. Wow what a burst of energy not only for Sybil Atteck but for Trinidad. And there is so much more.
Sybil would soon face the most difficult moments in her life. In 1969 has her first bout with cancer. She tried desperately to raise the funds to pay for her treatment. With her future is now in doubt she fights on and survives this life challenge and continues with several exhibitions. In 1973 she is nominated for a Chaconia Medal (Gold) for her contribution to art in Trinidad and Tobago. However, her cancer returns and she was unable to be present to receive the medal. Her sister Olga, now returned to Trinidad to care for her ailing sister receives the medal on her behalf. Sybil struggles on through 1974 and eventually succumbs to her ailment on April 15, 1975.
However, Sybil Atteck is not forgotten. She is regaled in newspaper articles and magazines by her friends, peers, and may others. She is featured on Stamps of Trinidad and Tobago. Sybil Atteck is even in a crossword puzzle. And in 2006 she is featured in the celebration of the Bicentenary of the Chinese arrival in Trinidad. Her legacy lives on in the memory of her nephew, in the art that can be seen in Trinidad and around the world, and in the heart of the many students who had the privilege to be taught and mentored by Sybil Atteck.

Remember when cricket gear consisted of bats made from section of the Coconut Leave and ball was what we referred to " SEA COCONUT " found along the sea shore. Photo shows group of boys in Roxborough in Tobago enjoying game of cricket on the beach.

The history of Crix dates back to 1923 when two migrants from Venezuela started making water crackers, and distributed their products directly to shops throughout the island.

Venezuelan brothers Jose Rafael and Jose Angel Bermudez, who migrated to Trinidad in the early 1900s, founded the precursor to the Bermudez Biscuit Company at a location on Park Street in Port of Spain.

Jose Rafael, who was fascinated by technology, had taken notice of an innovative wood burning biscuit oven when he attended the 1900 World Fair in Paris. He came to Trinidad with the contraption and set about with his brother to produce "salt biscuits".

The Port of Spain factory was destroyed by fire in the 1950s, and the operation was moved to Mt. Lambert where it has grown and flourished.

The crackers became so popular that Crix would soon be found on store shelves in Grenada and St. Vincent.

Later, expansion to Guyana, St. Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Jamaica confirmed Crix as the Caribbean’s cracker.

Bermudez Biscuit Company Ltd. quickly became one of the foremost food corporations in the region.

By the late 1980s, when people were becoming more health conscious, the Company started making whole wheat Crix and, later, multigrain Crix.

The Company now manufactures 40 different types of biscuits in a modern automated factory and is home to other iconic brands of crackers and cookies such as Dixee, Wheat Crisps and Rough Tops.

Crix crackers are fondly called “vital supplies" after a successful marketing campaign.

The Caribbean is sometimes referred to as the true ‘melting pot in the Americas’, where people, their culture, customs and cuisines, were forcibly integrated with the newer imports of African people under European bondage. Today, we trace back the origins of one of these ‘melting pot’ creations; Callaloo with Dumplings and Saltfish.
The actual origins of Callaloo are widely contested. For Trinidadians, Callaloo is one part of their national dish: Crab and Callaloo- a dish which was created by the African slaves sometime around 1530 when the island was under Spanish occupation.
It means that whilst the dish may be a national staple on both islands in Trinidad and Tobago, the origins of the dish stem long after the arrival of African slaves circa-1510. Furthermore, documents detailing the cuisine of Africans by English and Dutch Explorers in the 1400’s, depict Callaloo as a regular ingredient in dishes, most noticeably ones which include spinach.
However, the difference in preparation between African Callaloo and that found in the Caribbean and particularly in Trinidad and Tobago is the use of Palm oil. As a readily available plant throughout West Africa, Palm Oil was and still is used in a variety of dishes throughout Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone and Angola. However, in the Caribbean, where Palm trees and alas, Palm Oil is not native or wildly available, the slaves in the 1530’s were forced to improvise using what was readily available near or on their plantations- Coconut palm.
As the processes between Coconut oil and Palm Oil are vastly different, the resulting oil not only changes the depth of flavours between the two different types of Callaloo, but their flavour profiles and health properties as well, with Palm Oil having more carcinogenic properties than its coconut oil variant, as well as having a more ‘slimy’ texture and slightly more bitter taste.
Regardless of the flavour of food, the Slaves merely sought out the oil for its ability to keep the Callaloos’ texture firm and consistent throughout the dish, preventing it from becoming almost paste like in consistency.
Yet surprisingly, the method of how the slaves extracted the oil from the Coconut palm is relatively unchanged over the past 400 years, with the slaves initially grating a dry coconut into a pulp before squeezing the liquid out through a sieve, resulting in a product that had the colour of milk which they would then add into the ingredients to make Callaloo.
Now whilst Callaloo was a tasty and often filling morsel for the ill-treated slaves to dine on, the time consuming nature of creating Callaloo from scratch was often too risky for it to be a regular form of sustenance. As such, an alternative was forcibly needed; dumplings.
Whilst both Caribbean and African cuisines now use a combination of plain and self-raising flour made from wheat for their dumplings today, the Slaves would not have had access to wheat crops. Instead, Cassava, which was cultivated by several plantations for its similarities to wheat and potatoes, would make the first adaptations of dumplings in the West Indies.
In both cases, where the ingenuity of the enslaved lay was what they accompanied their carbohydrate heavy dishes with; seafood. As crabs were often the most easy to catch of all the seafood available due to Trinidad and Tobago’s abundance of shorelines, Crabs rock pooling along the shore were easy targets for slaves looking for a quick bite.
As restrictions on the movement of slave both on and off the plantation grew and the penalties for escaping or even wondering out of the plantation became more severe, the use of crabs fizzled out by the mid 1500’s. Instead, the enslaved were forced to look for an alternative to their dish- which they found in saltfish.
Initially used as a fertiliser for the crops, ‘Salt-fish’- which was merely any white fish that was doused in salt, was often useable fish that slave owners did not want to use to feed their slaves/. Initially, the fertiliser was fresh fish, but after slaves ate the fish whilst working the fields, Plantation owners added salt to deter their slaves from eating the produce. As such, initial adopters of raw Saltfish were those who were hungry; a decision which often became a cause for their death due to dehydration. Those who were caught eating the salt fish were reprimanded with lashes, muzzles and in the case of known repeat offenders, the removal of their tongue.
It meant that for the Saltfish to become a useable or even integral part of a meal, it had to be processed- which was often done by ‘washing’ the salt off the fish where available, boiling the fish till the salt came off as a silted layer in the water, or soaking the fish till the taste of the salt was almost completely removed.
Today, Callaloo with Dumplings and Saltfish is a hearty, filling meal eaten by Trinidadians, often on a Sunday when available. In recent years, and with the growing acknowledgement of Trinidad’s Asian influence, Roti is included or even used to substitute for the Dumplings, whilst Crabs have been re-introduced into the dish to accompany and even contrast the more savoury flavour of the Salted fish.

“The leaves of the chadon beni is rich in iron, carotene, riboflavin, and calcium, and are an excellent source of vitamin A,B, C. This herb also has medicinal properties. The leaves of the plant is a good remedy for high blood pressure, and epilepsy. In some Caribbean countries it is called fitweed because of its anti-convulsant properties. It is a stimulant and has anti-inflamatory and analgestic properties. As a matter of fact, the whole plant could be used to cure headache, diarrhea, flu, fever, vomiting, colds, malaria, constipation, and pneumonia.”

Amazing things were witnessed when...the Earth People came into Port of Spain in the year of Oh Lord 1979, dressed only in bunches of balisier flowers and heading for Whitehall to see the prime minister! They explained to amazed reporters that they had abandoned all the comforts of civilization including clothes, to live in the primal forests on their own. They called themselves the Earth People and were led by the earth mother who was named appropriately Mother Earth, who was the mother of them all and the wife too of all the males including her own sons. The men all created more earth people with Mother Earth. They had rejected civilized names and called themselves names like dasheen and eddoes and plantain. Trinidad was agog for a few days until the earth people retreated back into the forests never to be seen again in inhabited regions. Vidia Naipaul wrote that some Trinis were going back to the bush, but not even he envisaged something like this.

It is alarming that Lady Young Road still retains its name. After all, the roadway was named after a sharp-tongued woman who despised the people over whom her husband Sir Hubert Young was Governor.

She was somewhat of a bully, as was the Governor.

Lady Rose Mary Young came to Trinidad in 1938 with Sir Hubert who was appointed T&T's 12th Governor after a diplomatic posting in Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he had broken a strike by copper miners.

Sir Hubert's given mission was to deal with labour unrest that had resulted in bloody Butler Riots the year before when 12 people shot dead by police.

Unsurprisingly, labour leaders didn't want him around and, even before his arrival, they led a march through Port of Spain with placards reading, “Warm welcome Sir 'Hitler' Young" and "Trinidad is not Rhodesia".

In the four years the Youngs spent in T&T, they were never fully integrated into the small, white, upper class community. Not even her experience as a pilot and membership of the Light Aeroplane Club helped.

Lady Young tried to impress the bourgeoisie circle by helping found a local chapter of the British Red Cross Society and having herself installed as its first president.

But her ego was bruised when, as WWII broke out, wealthy, Anglo/Scottish landowner Martha Eunice Simpson and other women of high social standing formed Ladies’ Shirt Guild, for the purpose of making articles of clothing to donate towards the war relief effort.

Lady Young saw the guild as a rival group and was furious, moreso when Simpson's initiative got a written endorsement from Buckingham Palace.

The Youngs berated the Simpsons, did whatever they could to bring the guild into the Red Cross fold, and when they did not succeed they tried to up the ante by complaining to London that the Simpsons were jealous, eccentric and known for their intolerant attitude.

Not getting her way, an angry Lady Young wrote the the Colonial Office. But, in doing so, she unwittingly revealed her inner thoughts about the island's people:

“...Nothing much that we can do will mend matters, as these people and the whole section – a small and vehement one they come from, have not even had manners they have no conception of manners, loyalty, or any other civilized virtue. They simply don’t live in the same box as ordinary human beings, one cannot calculate what any of their reactions are; they are as strange and remote morally as the Africans and low Caste Indians who have, as everything tends to sink, – much influenced the whole trend of life in these islands.”

When Simpson sent two crates of clothing items to Buckingham Palace,
Governor Young called it "an act of defiance".

He penned a letter that revealed their unpopularity and insecurity:
"There are in this Colony certain disaffected persons who are always on the look-out for an opportunity to take up an attitude of antagonism to the Governor... These are the people whose malicious unkindness to officials from overseas and their wives is a well known feature of social life in Trinidad.”

The Youngs failed to get their way.

Governor Young had even failed to bully the U.S. into setting up their military operating base in the Caroni Swamp instead of Chaguaramas, and was recalled to London. Officially, "due to ill-health".

In 1942, towards the end of the Governor's term in office, the couple had hardly left a significant mark on the country. However, Governor Young seized a chance to do so when a plan arose to build a roadway connecting the roundabout in St. Ann’s with the Eastern Main Road. Before the sod was even turned, a decision was taken to name the roadway for his wife.

The Youngs left Trinidad on April 2nd,1942. It was 17 years later, on June 3rd, 1959, that Lady Young Road was opened to vehicular traffic. They never saw the eponymous roadway.

In the meantime, Mrs Simpson moved to South Africa.

PHOTO: This vintage Trinidad Guardian photograph shows Lady Young (at right) and her husband Governor Hubert Young flanking Molly Huggins, wife of the Colonial Secretary, at the seaplane ramp in Cocorite, just before the couple departed Trinidad on April, 2nd,1942.