Prior to kick off, T&T just needed a positive result from their final group game against Guyana and a late equalizer from Lauryn Hutchinson was just enough for Kenwyne Jones and his charges to win Group F and advance to the CONCACAF W Championship.
At the end of the first half, Trinidad and Tobago was trailing 1-0 but they were quickly back into it after Maria Frances-Serrant won a penalty kick one minute after the game’s restart. Tobagonian Asha James continued her fine scoring form when she confidently stepped up to score the equalizer and the first goal by a national women’s team at the Dwight Yorke Stadium.
It seemed that T&T was in the driving seat until goalkeeper Kimika Forbes let in an extremely soft goal to give Guyana the lead in the 82nd minute which completely silenced the Dwight Yorke Stadium. Jones made a double substitute with about five minutes left, putting on Maya Matouk and Lauryn Hutchinson. The latter became the super sub as Hutchinson scored an equalizer in the 90th minute to ensure that Trinidad and Tobago has advanced to the Concacaf W Championship in Mexico.
(Source: T&T Sport Diary, April 12, 2022)

Have you ever heard about the Capildeo Theory?
Dr. Rudranath Capildeo was a Trinidadian scholar who made contributions in the fields of applied mathematics and physics. He studied the nature of space and time and this sparked his interest in understanding Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. His work resulted in new theories, such as the “Theory of Rotation and Gravity” or “Capildeo’s Theory” for short. This theory had applications in early outer space expeditions in the 1960s and 1970s.
Capildeo was a gifted educator who spent most of his teaching life at the University College, London. He also taught at other institutions including the University of Khartoum, Sudan and he was the first principal of Trinidad Polytechnic School. He wrote a mathematics textbook entitled “Vector Algebra and Mechanics: Theory, Problems, and Solutions”.
Rudranath Capildeo was born in Chaguanas, Trinidad on February 2nd 1920 at “The Lion House”. He attended Queen’s Royal College (QRC) and won an Open National Scholarship in 1939. He began studies in medicine at Oxford University, but due to illness, he switched to mathematics at University College London.
He completed an intermediate bachelor of science degree and followed with a BSc Special Degree in Mathematics. He copped several prizes and graduated in 1943. Capildeo returned to Trinidad and taught Mathematics at QRC for a brief period. He furthered his studies at University College London and gained a Master of Science degree in 1945 and a Doctorate in Mathematical Physics in 1948.
His ability to manipulate mathematical techniques enabled him to solve any problem. His logical mind, skill in debating, and clear understanding of his subject assisted him in explaining complicated mathematical theories to his students and laypeople. He proceeded to clarify and fortify Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity because he “knew it inside out, upside down, and sideways”.
Apart from his achievements in science, Dr. Capildeo studied law in London and was admitted to practise as a Barrister-at-Law in Trinidad. He founded and led the Democratic Labour Party and became Leader of the Opposition in the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament when the country became independent.
He was considered an outstanding scholar, yet, the full potential of his work is not fully understood.
For his great achievements in science, he was awarded one of the inaugural National Awards- the Trinity Cross- from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago in 1969.
He died on May 12, 1970.  Source: Caribbean Hindustani, March 29, 2022

A tribute to an enormously talented Trinibagonian who passed away in South Africa.  Rest in peace Gillian.   

Musician and composer Gillian Nathaniel-Balintulo is remembered as someone who brought the gift of joy to those around her throughout her life. Music was an integral part of that life, which she shared with her students in Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa, where she died on September 11, 2021.
She was born at the Port of Spain General Hospital on December 18, 1948, the youngest child of Naomi Phyllis Duprey and Raleigh Trevor Nathaniel, and grew up on Norfolk Street, Belmont, with her parents and siblings Gordon, June, Ainsley and Amery.
The household was a musical one, and Nathaniel-Balintulo began taking music lessons from her mother at five.
Family friend Sonya Moze said, “As close neighbours in Belmont I was a more than frequent visitor to their incredibly musical household, Gordon on bass, June’s exceptionally beautiful soprano voice, Ainsley, strumming guitar and the altogether gifted Amery (esquires). Who in Norfolk Street did not know of Naomi’s exceptional brood of talent. Music emanated from that house like a constant melodic waterfall. It was this that not only inspired me to become a performing artist but to recognise through their example, the discipline and commitment needed to hone one’s gifts. Thank you DiTi and to all those Nathaniels. Life is indeed short but memories are forever.”



Trinidad All Stars' musical director, Dr Mia Gormandy-Benjamin conducts the orchestra during the band's Classical Jewels concert in 2019. Gormandy-Benjamin's predecessor Gillian Nathaniel-Balintulo was the band's first female conductor and one of the few female arranges in the 1980s. -

Family friend Vindra, giving the eulogy at the funeral in South Africa, where Nathaniel-Balintulo was buried, said her siblings have fond memories of lying in bed listening to her practice scales.
“As the years passed those scales turned into test pieces for all the music festivals for which her mother entered her which by the way she always won, eventually coming number one in the Open Championships at the tender age of 13. This was an extraordinary accomplishment as she competed against musicians twice her age.”
Nathaniel-Balintulo attended St Rose’s Girls' RC, and then St Joseph’s Convent Port of Spain. She began winning the piano classes in her age groups at Music Festival as early as 1956 and represented SJC at Music Festival from the age of 12. She topped the piano solo classes for her age group in 1960, 1962, 1964, and 1966, also winning the Junior Instrumental Solo championship trophy in 1964 and 1966 against competitors in various instruments. She also competed in the vocal category in duets and trios. In 1966, she won both the Mezzo Soprano Solo and Girls’ Vocal Duet classes, the latter with Gylla Gatcliffe (née Reid).
SJC’s Past Pupils Association said she is among the most decorated of SJC’s music prodigies over the years. In a post on its Facebook page, it said, “Those of us who knew Gillian as a classmate and friend and in the decades post-1965 send our deepest condolences to her family. Memories of Gillian abound: watching and listening to her play the piano at SJC in the 1960s era, on stage in the grand hall, from time to time when she filled in for Ms Jocelyn Pierre, or as we strolled past the music rooms where she practised. She was unbeaten in her categories at Music Festivals in those years.


“We fondly remember her soulful body movements as she felt and lived the music she made; her elegant legs activating the piano pedals and those unique, long fingers flying up and down the entire length of the piano keyboard, seemingly at the speed of light. All of this was assembled in perfect unison; bars of written notes interpreted and rendered just as the composers had dreamed they would be, but better! Gillian’s music was as beautiful as the person herself, inside and out!”
Nathaniel-Balintulo attended the Royal College of Music in London, England and completed the Associate of the Royal of College of Music (ARCM) in piano teaching. On her return to TT, she accepted a job at Queen’s Royal College, Vindra said.
“In her spare time, she taught music privately at her home, to many students, who would testify to the positive influence she had in nurturing their musical ability. Many of her students went on to become celebrated and accomplished musicians in their own right.
“It was during this time that Gillian met her husband to be, South African sociology lecturer Marcus Balintulo, at a recital at the UWI, where he was a faculty member. After a brief courtship they married and subsequently moved to Botswana in 1974, where the couple focused on raising a family while navigating new geographical and cultural terrain. They had three children together, daughter Liziwe, and sons Liyanda and Siyavuya.”
The couple left TT in 1974 as Marcus pursued work opportunities in Botswana, Nigeria, and the United States, and returned to TT in 1980. On their return, Nathaniel-Balintulo resumed teaching and worked as a concert pianist and accompanist with several local organisations.
Student and friend Caroline Taylor said, in a tribute on her blog, that in 1988, Nathaniel-Balintulo was among a group of women whose roles in a handful of prominent bands marked a significant moment in steelband history. She said this was recorded in Judith Laird’s documentary Prelude to Finale: Three Women Arrangers/Conductors, and in texts like Stephen Stuempfle’s The Steelband Movement: The Forging of a National Art in TT.
Nathaniel-Balintulo's groundbreaking appointment as musical director of Trinidad All Stars Steel Orchestra (TASSO) came the year after she performed with them as a concert pianist in Classical Jewels VI, playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Nathaniel-Balintulo was appointed musical director and conductor after the retirement of Jerry Jemmott. She led the band in its performances of Capriccio Italien, for Pan is Beautiful, at the World Steelband Festival in 1988 for Classical Jewels VII in 1989; and on the band’s tours of Jamaica in 1989 and the UK in 1990.
She was the band’s first female conductor, and one of the few female arrangers at that time. Taylor said she also reportedly earned the nickname “Steroids” from the band.
In a release from All Stars, the band’s PRO Stacy Ann Patrick said Nathaniel-Balintulo’s entry brought an advanced understanding of respect to the band.
“The practice space had a renewed energy reflective of a spirit that understood and appreciated the depth at which flair and joy were married. Her ability to bridge the gap that sometimes separated the formally trained from those who learned and performed music intuitively was a blessing upon us. The bond between her and the players ensured that her vision of combining the voices of children from three primary schools with steel voices came to life. Her many gifts allowed the impossible to become possible. Her experience and appreciation for diversity supported the orchestra in standard-setting tours to Jamaica and the United Kingdom in 1989 and 1990.”
Longstanding band member Denise Riley said Nathaniel-Balintulo was meticulous to a fault not because she was the first female musical director of the band but because she was simply Gillian: a relentless visionary and implementor in all aspects of performance.
The release said Nathaniel-Balintulo, through her power, opened the door for the members of Trinidad All Stars to continue having conversations on what role-modelling, professionalism and perfection should look and feel like in the turbulence of the late 1980s.
“Impeccably dressed, with head held high, she navigated the mazes that the country had built around pannists so as to keep them at the milepost reached since the 1940s. Under her reign members continued to explore and succeed at learning how to read and arrange music; competencies that Jerry 'Uncle Jem' Jemmott nurtured in the band during his tenure. Under her rhythm members continued to hone their skills in bringing classical music to many. Under her smile, fear melted and confidence on and off the stage flourished.”
Reflecting on the significance that Nathaniel-Balintulo had in their lives, founder and leader of the legendary group Panazz Barry Bartholomew says, "She was special – her attention to detail positively impacted me and so many other players that we too strived for perfection."
Ace panman Dane Gulston added, "Gillian understood our rhythm – she worked with it so that each of us became a part of the music. Gillian was elegant. She made a difference in our lives."
Members today may also say that her unreserved energy when it came to her approach to rehearsals is alive and well in the band's manager and drillmaster Nigel Williams.
Nathaniel-Balintulo moved to the birthplace of her husband, South Africa, in the late 1990s, once her children finished secondary education. Vindra said she continued teaching music while overseeing the children’s tertiary education.
“The family initially lived in Durban and then settled in Cape Town in the late 90s. During this era Gillian continued pursuing her love for music and always shared this passion for teaching. In Cape Town, she worked in the music department at Herschel Girls School in Claremont and in 2006 she joined the music department of the German international School Cape Town, where she taught until 2020. With her deep West Indian roots, Gillian always managed to connect with people who straddled TT and South Africa.”
Nathaniel-Balintulo joined the Cape Town Steelband’s advisory board in 2011 and became chairperson in 2015.
“The core focus of the steelband project is to provide quality music education to young people in the western cape with particular focus on youth-at-risk, and under-resourced communities.”
Vindra said Nathaniel-Balintulo was proud of her grandchildren and relished the role of grandmother. She returned to TT frequently, with her last visit being in late 2018.
Not long after Marcus Balintulo’s death in December 2020, she was diagnosed with cancer. Despite her illness and the pandemic, she continued her work and teaching until about a month before her passing.
Vindra said Nathaniel-Balintulo had a strong and positive outlook especially in the last few months.
“Whenever I asked how she was in my daily phone calls, she would always respond by saying, 'I’m doing fine,' or, 'I’m doing well today.' She fought her illness with such inner strength, poise, dignity and grace to the very end. My family and I will always remember her as a flamboyant, colourful, vibrant, exciting, knowledgeable human being who oozed...joie de vivre. You will be sorely missed by all of us, Gillian, but you will always live in our hearts.”
Nathaniel-Balintulo died at home in her sleep on September 11. She is mourned by her three children, six grandchildren, surviving siblings Amery, Ainsley, and June Nathaniel, her family and friends, students, and the music communities on both sides of the Atlantic.
Information used in the writing of this article was collected by Marcia La Borde, Terri Roxborough, and Caroline Taylor. Source: Newsday, October 2, 2021

Trinidad All Stars conducted by Gillian.

TAKEN FROM Angelo Bissessarsingh's 2012 Archive
Monos Island is now best known as a holiday resort, but for the latter part of the 18th century, well into the 1920s it was an actual community with public officers, a chapel, and families who resided there all year round. The bays of the island were each occupied by a family, foremost among them being the Tardieus who were the great whalers and fishermen of Trinidad in a bygone era. Brave, hardy and hospitable, the Tardieus were well known as boat-builders as well as fishermen and were synonymous with Monos for nearly two centuries. Outsiders were few in the isolated island paradise . In 1849 one of the Tardieu girls married a ruddy Scotsman named William Morrison. He settled in La Vallette (later called Grand Fond) Bay and held the post of Government Bailiff (sort of like a Ward Officer charged with collection of rates and taxes) at the puling salary of one pound eighteenpence per month. As such, he farmed and fished to support his wife and family, and who lived like the Swiss Family Robinson in their solitude. The great English author, Charles Kingsley visited Trinidad and Monos too in 1870. He was enchanted by the lifestyle of Morrison and his brood and soliloquized thus:
“We beached the boat close to the almond-tree, and were welcomed on shore by the lord of the cove, a gallant redbearded Scotsman, with a head and a heart; a handsome Creole wife, and lovely brownish children, with no more clothes on than they could help. An old sailor, and much wandering Ulysses, he is now coast-guardman, water-bailiff, policeman, practical warden, and indeed practical viceroy of the island, and an easy life of it he must have. The sea gives him fish enough for his family, and for a brawny brown servant. His coco-nut palms yield him a little revenue ; he has poultry, kids, and goats' milk more than he needs ; his patch of provision-ground in the place gives him corn and roots, sweet potatoes, yam, tania, cassava, and fruit too, all the year round. He needs nothing, owes nothing, fears nothing. News and politics are to him like the distant murmur of the surf at the back of the island ; a noise which is nought to him. His Bible, his almanac, and three or four old books on a shelf, are his whole library. He has all that man needs, more than man deserves, and is far too wise to wish to better himself I sat down on the beach beneath the amber shade of the palms ; and watched my friends rushing into the clear sea, and disporting themselves there like so many otters, while the policeman's little boy launched a log canoe, not much longer than himself, and paddled out into the midst of them, and then jumped upright in it, a little naked brown Cupid whereon he and his canoe were of course upset, and pushed under water, and scrambled over, and the whole cove rang with shouts and splashing, enough to scare away the boldest shark, had one been on watch off the point. I looked at the natural beauty and repose ; at the human vigor and happiness : and I said to myself, and said it often afterwards in the West Indies : Why do not other people copy this Scot ? Why should not many a young couple, who have education, refinement, resources in themselves, but are, happily or unhappily for them, unable to keep a brougham and go to London balls, retreat to some such paradise as this (and there are hundreds like it to be found in the West Indies), leaving behind them false civilization, and vain desires, and useless show ; and there live in simplicity and content " The Gentle Life" ? It is not true that the climate is too enervating. It is not true that nature is here too strong for man. I have seen enough in Trinidad, I saw enough even in' little Monos, to be able to deny that ; and to say, that in the West Indies, as elsewhere, a young man can be pure, able, high-minded, industrious, athletic : and I see no reason why a woman should not be likewise all that she need be. A cultivated man and wife, with a few hundreds a year—just enough, in fact, to enable them to keep a Coolie servant or two, might be really wealthy in all which constitutes true wealth and might be useful also in their place ; for each such couple would be a little centre of civilization for the Negro, the Coolie and it may be for certain young adventurers who, coming out merely to make money and return as soon as possible, are but too apt to lose, under the double temptations of gain andof drink, what elements of the " Gentle Life " they have gained from their mothers at home.”
The rapture which Kingsley felt over the Morrison clan at Monos must have been real indeed for seventeen years later, the Scotsman was still on the island albeit a bit frailer and was described as follows :
“Monos has good water, several roomy houses, and capital bays for bathing, but the cultivation is not so good as it might be, since it is infested with parasol ants. One of Kingsley's 'At Last' heroes, Mr. Morrison, is still to the fore, though a little more weather-beaten than in the days when Kingsley dubbed him the ' much-wandering Ulysses.'
Morrison died in 1904 and was buried in the sandy soils of his beloved La Vallette Bay His wife, Charlotte Tardieu, also seems to have been all that a pioneer woman needed to be. Indeed, many years after her death, Capt. Percy Fraser, a former Superintendent of Prisons who had visited the place as a youth in the 1880s and 1890s, wrote in the 1940s:
“How many can remember Monos at the time I am writing about? Who remembers old William Morrison and his wife Tante Charlotte” as we youngsters called her and his large family of sons and daughters who were all born on Monos?. Old Morrison was a Scot and a typical one at that. He was a seaman who called here in his youth and married in the Dehere or Tardieu family who at the time owned Bays at Monos and Scotland Bay. At the time I am referring to , the Morrisons lived at Grand Fond Bay , subsequently owned by the Lack family and now by Mr. Albert Siegert (grandson of Dr. J.G.B Siegert of Angostura Bitters fame) . It was taken over by the Americans lately (during WWII) for military purposes. They (Morrisons) kept cows , goats and pigs and cultivated coconuts . People occupying the neighbouring bays got their milk from them. They baked their own bread which they also supplied to the Bays. Tante Charlotte was also the local doctor and whenever anyone fell sick in any of the Bays she was sent for. She readily answered the call and prescribed her well known and efficacious local remedies . Her cheerful disposition was quite sufficient to make a sick person feel better. At Grand Fond they had mango trees of all kinds and we boys enjoyed nothing better than to row over there during the mango season and enjoy that luscious fruit to our hearts content. Whenever we arrived, old Morrison would send one of his men to pick coconuts for us. After drinking as many as we could consume, we would load our boat with nuts to take away. We also enjoyed a glass of fresh milk, either cow or goat. Old Morrison held several posts at Monos under the Government . Postmaster, Harbour Master, Bailiff , Road Officer-there was a road from Kenny’s Bay to Domus Bay, for the upkeep of which he was responsible, Special Constable, Wreck Officer, Customs Officer etc. He was an expert fisherman and no one else knew the various banks or currents better than he. He also took part in the whaling industry which at that time flourished, He was responsible for many rescues at sea.”
This amazing man and his wife lived and died on Monos where they had carved their own utopia, so much so that even though many of their children left the island , three remained in the old house long after the deaths of their parents. The great historian, Fr. Anthony De Verteuil traced the last part of the Morrison saga on Monos and it is this; Patrick Morrison and his spinster sisters, Misses Aggie and Lolotte remained in the old house. Patrick owned a fishing boat called the Oily Oyster from which he harvested the bounty of the sea while Lolotte was Postmistress for Monos, a post she inherited from her father. She was known for floating about in her voluminous skirts on a bamboo raft, bonneted in a Mexican sombrero!! The siblings eked out a living , earning some cash by occasionally moving into the servant quarters at La Vallette and renting out the main house to holidaymakers in the 1920s. Finally, Patrick and Aggie died and Lollotte was left alone. She sold the house and bay to Sir Geo. F. Wight, a millionaire business tycoon from Port-of-Spain who resold it to Gerard Montano, a San Fernando businessman . He had the house demolished in order to build a new villa and workmen were badly frightened when in one of the rooms of the old Morrison home, a 15 foot macajuel snake (Boa Constrictor) was discovered. The superstitious workmen believed that Lolotte was a witch and the snake had been her pet.
Source:  Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago.  Feb 6, 2022)

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