In December 2025, I made a long-overdue decision to return to Trinidad, the island where I lived from 1975 to 1979, and the place my parents called home.
My parents grew up as neighbours in St. James. Their life together was shaped by a shared history and a deep calling. Since the age of ten, my father knew he wanted to serve God. In the early 1950s, he paid for my mother’s boat passage to the UK so she and their firstborn could set up a home. After selling the rest of their worldly belongings, Dad followed shortly after.
Life in England was a series of transitions. After working as an accountant and moving several times, Dad finally enrolled in theological college. He was eventually ordained in St. Albans Abbey and served in several Hertfordshire parishes: Sawbridgeworth, Berkhamstead, and Borehamwood. But in 1975, he felt the pull to return home and minister in Trinidad. By then, our family had grown to five siblings; I am the youngest.
The Arrival: Into the Oven
I still remember the date we flew out: November 15, 1975. It was my first long-distance flight, and the excitement was palpable. As our BWIA flight descended, I marveled at the nighttime lights of Port of Spain, specifically the revolving bar atop what is now the Radisson Hotel.
Stepping off the plane at Piarco Airport was like walking into an oven. The heat was immediate and unforgiving. My sister, struggling with travel sickness, disembarked only to be violently ill over two pieces of luggage. They might have been designer suitcases, but my mother swiftly ushered us away from the scene and toward our new life.
Life at the Deanery
Our first two months were spent at the Deanery in Princes Town. My father had been assigned to St. Stephen’s Vicarage, a unique building that, sadly, no longer exists. It was a single-level structure with a curious history: it had once featured an open pond in the center. By the time we arrived, the pond had been built over to create our living room.
The house remains vivid in my mind:
- The Living Room: Furnished with wooden chairs and a sofa boasting blue leather cushions with white trim.
- The Soundtrack: My eldest brother had a corner room with a hi-fi system. When he was away, I would sneak in to play Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and the Eagles’ Hotel California. Those were my formative years.
- Nurse Grant: My father’s assistant, Nurse Grant, worked in a corner office facing the street. I remember her as an avid reader, always tucked into an Agatha Christie mystery or a Mills and Boon romance.
- The Sights and Sounds: My sister and I shared a room that looked out onto a neighbouring chicken farm. We lived to the soundtrack of squawking chickens and the sight of a rudimentary wooden outhouse, a simple steel barrel topped with wood.
Faith and Heat
The church was just a few minutes’ walk away. From the glass sliding doors of our front room, I often watched my father head over to start his day.
Church life was rigorous. I vividly remember a Good Friday service that lasted three hours; in that tropical heat, it was utterly draining. We were expected to attend every Sunday, and every now and then, Dad would ask me to give the reading. Afterward, he and the parishioners would kindly remark on how well I had done.
The Return: Progress and Nostalgia
Returning this past December was a bittersweet experience. It was jarring to see that the old vicarage and our neighbours' house had been replaced by the Princes Town Mall. I found myself asking the age-old question: Is this progress?
The church itself is still standing, though it felt much smaller than I remembered. The choir stalls have been moved, and the organ is gone. It was at that organ, while I was trying to play, that I experienced my first earth tremor. I remember feeling dizzy and confused, only to realise it wasn't an illness - it was the ground itself moving beneath me.
Despite the physical changes, the spirit of the place remains. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to revisit these memories and meet the kind, generous people of the current parish. They welcomed me warmly, introduced me to the new vicar, Fr. Michael, and reminded me that while buildings may fall, the community remains.
Diane Hinds is author of Conquerabia: The Struggle For Identity, book, which is available to buy now.
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