AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Shane Collens and, when they hear my Queen’s-English BBC-radio accent, people don’t believe I was born in Trinidad.

My accent is more South Ken(sington) than Southend.

I’m fourth-generation Trinidadian and have lived here for 40 years.

I was born in Henry Pierre Street, my father in Dere Street.

My great-grandfather, the English implant, was posted here as Inspector of Schools, which today would be the Minister of Education.

I’m from Cascade and have never wanted to live anywhere else. I have a view from the hillside. I can walk to Hi-Lo and the Savannah.

I even walk downtown. I love the exercise, and,if you take the car, it takes as long to park as to walk.

My parents split when I was 18 months old. Dad stayed here and Mum carried me off to England, where I stayed until I was 30. So I’m culturally English. In those days, my family had money and I went to a proper boarding school, Lancing College. I finished secondary education at the College of Further Ed, which was free.

I was in England, but in a Trini household.

So I had a Queen’s English accent but a Trini vocabulary. Kids at school would look at me strangely when I said I was coming back “just now.”

My dad was a builder. Built a house, sold it, built two more, sold them, never looked back.

They say you have to get into property if you want to get rich.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do that.

I’ve been a poor, struggling artist for 50 years.

It took 30 years to pay for it, but I own my house.

I own my car, too, but I wouldn’t be able to sell it if I tried. Probably couldn’t even give it away.

I’m 67 and, two years ago, celebrated 50 years as an artist.

My first commission, when I was 15, was from the leader of the Angmering-on-Sea motorcycle club, who took a shine to my sister. They loved my design of an emblem for the back of their leather jackets. I charged them 50 pence a go and there were eight of them, so I made £4. But it was my first professional engagement.

I specialised in fashion design at art school, but after two years of financial difficulty in the fashion industry I thought, no, I can’t do this just because I want to make my own nice clothes.

So I went to work as a labourer on a building site.

I graduated to being a bricklayer and put myself out to work building garden walls.

My elder brother, in Trinidad, persuaded me to come back to redesign the interiors of some old properties the family were still clinging on to that needed renovating. I agreed to a three-year stint but ended up staying 40.

I was 30 when I landed in Trinidad in the 80s. I’ve grown to love it, but at first, I felt no sense of reconnection to anything. No familiarity with the landscape. It was like a foreign place to me, both physically and culturally.

[caption id="attachment_1035830" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Shane Collens - Mark Lyndersay[/caption]

I’m glad for my mixed background and heritage, glad I was educated in England, but I’m also very glad my son Kirk was educated in Trinidad. If