Circular No 718

Newsletter for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.

Caracas, 8 August 2015 No. 718

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Dear Friends,

Here is the announcement of the film on my classmate Wayne Vincent Brown.

Unfinished Sentences, soon in the billboards

Filmmaker Mariel Brown unpacks her father’s life, going through five decades of his private letters, jotted musings, published and unpublished poems, columns and essays to get to the heart of who he was; in so doing, she hopes to reconnect with all she thinks she has lost.

Excerpt from Janine Charles-Farray, article

Published: Sunday, March 22, 2015

When loved ones die,

Unfinished business can linger and haunt those who remain with words left unsaid.

T&T filmmaker Mariel Brown has chosen to find catharsis and pay tribute through audio-visual expression in her upcoming documentary. 

The feature-length film, Unfinished Sentences is based on the life and work of her late father, poet, author and Caribbean literary icon Wayne Brown.

An award-winning documentary filmmaker, Brown has been known for producing stellar work in the T&T film industry.

In her films on diverse topics—from the insatiable season of Trinidad Carnival, to the solitary alchemy of master artisans and even the inward hunger for excellence of the late Dr Eric Williams—Brown is known for her sensitive and visually stunning explorations of the lives of remarkable personalities.

Earlier this month, her production company, Savant Films, officially announced the Unfinished Sentences film production.

This project is a journey six years in the making since Wayne Brown’s death in 2009, and is intended to reveal the life and work of one of the most remarkable personalities of Caribbean literature.

The film is being co-produced by Brown’s daughters Mariel and Saffrey, with cast including actor Renaldo Frederick as a younger Wayne Brown and Sophie Wight as his wife Megan.

The two Brown sisters will be played by child actors and first cousins, Che and Alessandra Jardine.

Noted actress Patti-Anne Ali will also be doing voice work on the film, along with Nigel Scott and musician/actor Nickolai Salcedo.

Wayne Vincent Brown (born 18 July 1944 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; died 15 September 2009 in Stony Hill, Jamaica) was a columnist, poet and fiction writer, and a teacher and mentor to numerous Caribbean writers

Wayne Brown was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to a Trinidadian father, Kenneth Vincent Brown, and a Barbadian mother.

His grandfather was Vincent Brown, the Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago.

His mother died soon after giving birth to him, and for most of his childhood Wayne was brought up by relatives, while his father worked as a puisne judge.

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The child of the sea

WAYNE BROWN

Sunday, August 05, 2001

When I first met her I was 16 and she was seven -- not the most romantic juxtaposition of ages.

But I'll tell you something I've learnt since.

Grow fond of a little girl when you're that age, and it's a fondness you'll have till death do you part.

At the time, I was friends with her brother, and she was a nuisance we had to put up with sometimes.

I remember her, brown, pigtailed and knobby-knee'd, running away from us past the Savannah cemetery, surrounded with strange, burly, heavily panting men, trying like them to get from the five-furlong gates to the homestretch in time to see the horses we'd just seen start finish.

I shouted, "--, come back here!", which alerted her brother, who pelted after her and snatched her up from the midst of that phalanx of galloping grown-ups and bawled at her, while she looked at me bright-eyed, and I knew she was thinking she mightn't marry me, after all -- but I don't think she actually said it.

The marriage talk had started that summer down the island:

I was there with her folks for a fortnight.

Somehow it fell to me to teach her to swim, perhaps because strangers cannot be as peremptory with little girls as older brothers can -- or perhaps because only 16 year-olds really know the meaning of chivalry.

For whatever reason, she lay on my hands in the water, and kicked her feet and splashed her arms, turning her head from side to side to consider the sky with one bright eye and then the next, until I got bored and threatened to dunk her, and call it quits for the day -- whereupon the game would change.

For five "throw-up" into the air ("But high! It was to be high-high-high! Or no deal.") she was ready to offer me, if not love, then at least marriage, one day.

"When?" I'd say grimly, pretending to ponder her proposition.

"Soon's I'm 18." Then, giggling at my scowl: "Okay, 17! No, pleeze! Okay, okay, 16. I promise, sixteen! 16-16-16-16-15!

"Too long," I'd say, in a voice of doom.

"It has to be now or never."

And: "But I can't marry you now!" she'd wail.

"I'm only a little girl!" Dunk.

Her brother went away to study; we lost touch; the years passed.

The next time I saw her I was 24, she, 15.

This was at Las Cuevas.

I introduced her to my girlfriend, adding, for no reason I can now explain, "the child of the sea."

She had grown tall, with big hands and a fine frank face, and was just filling out.

Something about her struck me very strongly, and to say it was her laugh -- to say her laugh was like a delicious promise (of life, yes, but to whom? to herself?) -- is to put it ineptly.

But I cannot put it more clearly than that.

I remember she laughed a lot that day.

I remember: there were fights in the water, girls wrestling girls on the shoulders of young men, and our turn came to be paired off, she my warrior, me her amphibian steed.

But it didn't feel right; to her either; and after the battle was over -- we lost -- we edged away from each other in the water.

And yet, when her mother, not long after, asked me to help her with O'Level English, I did, and it was fine, and we were friends.

She said: "Why did you introduce me to your girlfriend as 'the child of the sea'?"

And -- when I said I didn't know -- "I like that name, I feel that way, sometimes...."

Twenty-eight, 19: Jamaica.

I was married and living there; she was just passing through on the way to art school in the States.

I said: 'I thought you were going to marry me?'

And she, with teenage archness: "You were the coward, not me."

Thirty-two, 23: a party in Cascade.

She has grown beautiful: she now, with a husband.

I said: "The years have been kind to you, my child."

Her laugh was the laugh from long ago.

She said: "You don't know what a relief it is to find your fame hasn't made you any less corny."

I smiled uncertainly. My fame?

But she was only referring to a book of mine which has been moderately well-received elsewhere but which had passed unnoticed in Trinidad.

I said, surprised: "You know that book?"

And: "O you of little faith," she said.

When I caught up with her sometime later and signed her copy, I signed it, To the Child of the Sea. "I was hoping you'd sign it like that," she said smiling.

"I still feel that way a lot of the time."

Thirty-five, 26. I heard she'd lost a child, in England.

I should have written; but my own life was in a crisis of its own, and I didn't write.

Forty, 31. Trinidad. I ran into her on Level Three, Long Circular Mall.

She had flown in the night before.

Her husband had gone on a contract in Kuwait, and after this vacation back home she will be going out to join him there.

Yes, they were childless; yes, she had been going to call me.

It was necessary for us to have faith.

It was necessary for me now to have faith.

I said: "And you?

You still have faith, after all that's happened?"

"Of course I do," she said.

"And -- look at me -- so do you. Don't you remember, The Child of the Sea?"

I didn't see her again.

Or to rephrase that: I never saw her again.

Last week I ran into an old school friend of her brother's and learned that she had died in London earlier this year; of cancer; at 34.

And frankly I find that hard to believe.

That I should not have known.

But I'll tell you something.

I have known people so evil that, when they hated, a literal stench came from them.

And I have always known, subconsciously, I suppose, that such people would live a long dry time.

But now I know it consciously as well.

Because now the good ones have started dying.

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Tue, September 22, 2009 6:55:38 AM

From: Chris Knowles <knowlescb@hotmail.com> 

One memory of Wayne on the Hill is that we were No 10 and 11 in Woodpeckers Patrol (I was No 11).

As such, we got to chop wood, clean fowl, fetch water and other such vital and undesirable tasks for the patrol:

I am not sure of our badge achievements.

Another is his having spent an entire school holiday (Easter?) in the Savannah checking Horse form and subsequently coming out on top in the later Race meeting.

He later told me that he enjoyed the experience, but that it was too much effort for little reward.

I took that to mean that his betting float was small.

Chris (aka Pupsy).

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From: jjhenderson@flowtrinidad.net

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:11:44 -0400

I have very fond memories of life at Mount with Wayne as we both very keen on races and we spent hours on the subject.

I remember him being forced to play a cricket match against St. Lawrence and he objected to having to play.

First ball from Owen Serrette cut his finger in two and that was that.

His finger healed for him to become one of the best Caribbean writers in recent history.

God rest his soul.

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David Bratt

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 6:08 PM

Yes, real, real sorry to hear this.....

I had hoped to meet him again.....apart from his incisive writing and dour but amiable personality,

I remember him for the Juniors A (remember that category?) St. Francis vs St Lawrence football game where he played right wing and Christopher Date, left wing,

Cokie Joe could run fast and Date had the most natural left foot I ever saw,

I played centre forward and both of them kept crossing the ball for me to score 4.

David

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Photos:

Bandit p37 The Early Times

08WVB0312WVB, Wayne Vincent Brown

70WB6283WVBWFE, Wayne Vincent Brown and wife Megan

92DC0001DCARETIE, Retirement of Raymond De Cambra