Uncle David, the masman

KIM JOHNSON

THE tributes have been paid on the death of my maternal uncle Prof David Picou, who died on May 4. He was one of the great Caribbean men, whose research into malnutrition saved millions of children’s lives in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Asia, when starvation was rife. As my daughters’ obstetricians once told me, he was one of the region’s greatest scientists.

And that’s fine and well-deserved, but it doesn’t give an idea of the man, who was no stuffy scientific nerd, all work and no play.

No one mentioned, for instance, that Uncle David loved Carnival passionately, like many Chinese-Trinis. At his home was a collection of paintings of pan and mas, and copperwork by Ken Morris from his costumes.

When he lived in Jamaica, after about 20 years, he began returning to Trinidad for every Carnival to play mas, starting with Peter Minshall’s Paradise Lost, until he moved back here. For that first band, he was part of the group that made a plaster of Paris mould for Peter Samuel – who had a damaged spine – so his Serpent in the Garden of Eden costume could be strapped on without hurting the masquerader.

So the masman that was Prof Picou was never isolated from the academic. In 1981, for instance, there was a conference on Carnival at The UWI, and one presenter did not show up. I was working as a research assistant at The UWI at the time and I invited Uncle David to fill the spot. He did so, and spontaneously presented one of the most insightful analyses of the aesthetic considerations involved in designing a king-of-the-bands costume.

At first Uncle David came home under his own steam, but after a while he arranged every The UWI faculty of medicine meeting to be held in Trinidad in the Carnival season so that academics from around the world would get a taste of what he loved as much as his medical research.

He would rigorously make attendees work without a break till about 2 pm. Then he’d say, “Ok, work done for the day – time to lime.” And he’d pour drinks. At night they’d all go to a calypso tent.

He always played a section leader in the band in a large, ornate costume, which he’d take back to Jamaica. Those days there was a family joke that Uncle David’s sole topic of conversation was either the Carnival just passed, or the next one coming in six months’ time. And when he had people over to his home in University Close in Mona, and the rum started to flow, and the calypso was blasting on the stereo, he’d put on his costumes – as many as he could wear at the same time – and begin to dance. In The Sea he played a manta ray, with 15-foot wings, and he’d put it on to dance, spinning around, knocking over lamps and vases, crash! Smash!

Once he fell off the truck on Carnival Monday and fractured two ribs. He was a doctor, so he knew what had happened. So what? He just bandaged it up and continued playing mas.

He was a deeply social man; he loved to entertain, and he cooked like a pro. At the slightest excuse he’d invite people to his house and whip up an amazing four-course meal of Chinese food. Sometimes I’ve thought that his research into malnutrition made him acutely aware of the blessing that was a good meal.

Every year in Mona he held an enormous Old Year’s Night party that lasted until lunch on New Year’s Day. I’d not gone to Jamaica yet, but I remember it because he’d get my parents to send up, with some BeeWee captain, pastelles, black pudding and souse for the fete.

Then, after he returned home to live, around 1979, I think, he was one of the founders of his old school, Queen's Royal College’s, Men Who Cook fundraisers. Certainly, with his friend Prof Max Richards, he created the Max and Friends fundraiser fete for The UWI.

Once, after Richards had become president of Trinidad and Tobago, Uncle David was in New York and invited him to where he was staying for a lime. As a visiting head of state, the US Secret Service had two bodyguards accompany Richards, and they stood outside the building shivering – it was winter.Uncle David went down and invited them to come inside and join the lime. He persuaded them they’d better do their duty in sight of the president.

I could go on and on, because he also had a mischievous sense of humour and could regale you with amazing scenes from his life as a researcher. But I won’t. I’ll just end with one anecdote from when he was head of the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in Mona.

At the time he worked with many working-class women who were overburdened with many, many children they couldn’t take care of. He’d prescribe contraceptives so they wouldn’t continue getting pregnant. One came to him complaining that the contraceptives weren’t working and she was pregnant once again, for the eighth or ninth time.

“You made sure to take one of the tablets every day?” he asked the lady.

“Yes doctor,” she replied. “Every day I make sure and push one up."