Heritage in Harmony: The Skiffle Bunch story at 50

In­nis Fran­cis

For half a cen­tu­ry, the rhyth­mic heart­beat of Skif­fle Bunch Steel Or­ches­tra has echoed through south Trinidad—a tes­ta­ment to re­silience, cul­tur­al pride and un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Cel­e­brat­ing 50 years of mu­sic, com­mu­ni­ty and lega­cy, the San Fer­nan­do-based or­ches­tra has weath­ered chang­ing times, fi­nan­cial chal­lenges and fierce com­pe­ti­tion to emerge as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­dur­ing steel­band in­sti­tu­tions.

Un­der the stew­ard­ship of Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, the or­ches­tra re­cent­ly marked its gold­en an­niver­sary, re­flect­ing on a jour­ney that be­gan mod­est­ly in 1977 with just 18 mem­bers and a dream.

To­day, Skif­fle Bunch boasts gen­er­a­tions of mem­bers—youth and adults alike—who have passed through its pa­n­yard, car­ry­ing for­ward a lega­cy root­ed in dis­ci­pline, mu­sic and ser­vice to com­mu­ni­ty.

Seat­ed at the Cof­fee Street pa­n­yard re­cent­ly, Re­grel­lo—one of the found­ing mem­bers—rem­i­nisced on the dif­fi­cult but deeply sen­ti­men­tal days that shaped the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

He re­called that the band, much like the Bap­tist faith, was born dur­ing a pe­ri­od of strug­gle and trans­for­ma­tion.

Its ear­li­est be­gin­nings took shape be­hind his grand­moth­er’s Bap­tist church in Vista­bel­la, where the fledg­ling steel­band found shel­ter for nine months.

Re­grel­lo re­flect­ed on the evo­lu­tion of pa­n­yards over the decades, not­ing how they have trans­formed from spaces once viewed neg­a­tive­ly in­to places of cre­ativ­i­ty, dis­ci­pline and emo­tion­al refuge.

He said the pa­n­yard has evolved in­to a venue with the pow­er to stim­u­late minds and fos­ter uni­ty through mu­sic and love.

De­spite decades of achieve­ments, Re­grel­lo be­lieves Skif­fle’s great­est ac­com­plish­ments ex­tend far be­yond com­pe­ti­tion.

For many, suc­cess in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel­band move­ment is mea­sured by Panora­ma ti­tles. How­ev­er, for Re­grel­lo, Skif­fle’s proud­est mo­ments in­clude re­ceiv­ing a na­tion­al award for Arts and Cul­ture in 1991, win­ning the World Steel­pan Fes­ti­val in 2002, be­ing fea­tured on the 1978 five-dol­lar stamp and per­form­ing with en­ter­tain­er David Rud­der at the Com­mon­wealth Arts Fes­ti­val in 1987 at the Unit­ed Na­tions.

Al­though the or­ches­tra came close to Panora­ma vic­to­ry, se­cur­ing sec­ond and third-place fin­ish­es on sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions, Re­grel­lo said the cov­et­ed ti­tle has nev­er de­fined the band’s pur­pose.

“Panora­ma is like a dream,” he said, “but it is not our pri­ma­ry fo­cus for suc­cess.”

Skif­fle Bunch, he ex­plained, was born out of a group of for­mer play­ers called the Hoy­to­ni­ans, formed in 1974 and spon­sored by John Hoyte.

Af­ter part­ing ways with Hoyte, 18 mem­bers branched off to es­tab­lish Skif­fle Bunch, pur­chas­ing their cur­rent lo­ca­tion through col­lec­tive sav­ings and slow­ly build­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion from the ground up. Re­mark­ably, Re­grel­lo said 12 of those found­ing mem­bers re­main close­ly con­nect­ed to the band.

Speak­ing with ev­i­dent pride, Re­grel­lo re­flect­ed on the rise and de­cline of steel­bands across South Trinidad.

He said it took Skif­fle three years to tran­si­tion from a sin­gle-pan en­sem­ble to a con­ven­tion­al large band in 1992. By 1995, the or­ches­tra had en­tered Panora­ma, and to this day, he main­tains that Cof­fee Street de­liv­ered their finest per­for­mance.

Re­grel­lo said, “San Fer­nan­do had 19 bands. Every dis­trict had a lit­tle band, and the worst thing we have to deal with is the cat­e­go­ry as­pect: large, medi­um and small bands. That may work for the sys­tem, but in one way, it cre­at­ed prob­lems. In the 60s, it had no small, medi­um and large; all bands were large bands. We have two large bands in San Fer­nan­do, one medi­um band and about six to sev­en small bands.”

He con­tin­ued, “We are af­fil­i­at­ed with two schools, San Fer­nan­do Boys RC and Naps Com­bined, and they have been suc­cess­ful in their cat­e­go­ry for Panora­ma. So we are giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty. The scope is much more than just pro­duc­ing an­oth­er arranger. I like us to pro­duce bet­ter cit­i­zens who pass through.”

Re­grel­lo added that Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School was re­cent­ly in­clud­ed in the or­ches­tra’s men­tor­ship ini­tia­tive.

On the is­sue of spon­sor­ship, Re­grel­lo ad­mit­ted that, de­spite Skif­fle’s con­sis­ten­cy over the years, the band has strug­gled to se­cure sus­tained cor­po­rate back­ing, of­ten find­ing it­self dis­ad­van­taged when com­pared with larg­er steel­bands.

He not­ed that the or­ches­tra’s most re­cent spon­sor­ship end­ed abrupt­ly through an email sent just one month be­fore Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties be­gan this year.

“We nev­er had a prop­er spon­sor, if you look at the con­sis­ten­cy of bands like Des­per­a­dos, In­vaders, and Ex­o­dus. They have been spon­sored for a long pe­ri­od, which cre­ates growth and de­vel­op­ment. When you have a spon­sor who can align with you, there would be a re­la­tion­ship. But we nev­er had a prop­er spon­sor, spon­sors come in for a cou­ple years, one year or two-year con­tract and they give you fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, which they of­fer so small we are em­bar­rassed to say. So, over the years is al­ways a short-term thing. We were not hap­py with some of the spon­sors, be­cause they give so lit­tle and want so much, and that was dif­fi­cult for us to ac­cept. So, it can’t on­ly be about mon­ey,” Re­grel­lo said.

Re­flect­ing on this year’s chal­lenge, he de­scribed the loss of spon­sor­ship in Jan­u­ary as some­thing that struck “like a thief in the night”. Yet, de­spite the set­back, the band still se­cured a place in the Panora­ma fi­nals.

For Re­grel­lo, sus­tain­able spon­sor­ship must go be­yond tem­po­rary fi­nan­cial sup­port and in­stead be­come a mean­ing­ful part­ner­ship root­ed in cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing.

Cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly, he praised North Trinidad steel­bands for their con­sis­ten­cy and deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

“Whether we like it or not, Port of Spain is the mec­ca of pan, their love for pan is greater, Pan on the Av­enue, or Pan and Pow­er in Port of Spain, it is a mix­ture of the who’s who, or­di­nary folks who know how to cre­ate a eu­pho­ria. In San Fer­nan­do, it would on­ly be pan peo­ple. Pan is not well loved in San Fer­nan­do. It is ap­pre­ci­at­ed but not well loved. It is un­for­tu­nate what it has be­come.”

Re­grel­lo at­trib­ut­es Skif­fle’s longevi­ty to re­silience, per­sis­tence and per­se­ver­ance.

“We had sev­er­al com­pa­nies make of­fers to us, but we pre­fer to choose a spon­sor that would be aligned with us and that un­der­stands what cul­ture rep­re­sents and what spon­sor­ships mean. We had a lot of suc­cess sto­ries, and we want young peo­ple to buy in­to us. In that con­text, if you want to con­tribute to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the young peo­ple. This is an al­ter­na­tive to crime, to a life of bad be­hav­ior, es­pe­cial­ly what we see in the coun­try right now. So, we want young peo­ple to be on suc­cess to guid­ance and pro­tec­tion at a fa­cil­i­ty we made and treat them in a par­tic­u­lar way,” he said.

A fa­ther of five—three from a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship—Re­grel­lo al­so spoke can­did­ly about fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly the jour­ney of his youngest son, Joshua Re­grel­lo, and the chal­lenges of al­low­ing chil­dren to forge their own paths.

“I have five chil­dren, on­ly two took to the pan be­cause they were al­ways in the pan yard with me. When their moth­er was out of the coun­try be­cause of work. So, there was no plan for them to play pan. When Jousha start­ed, he was about sev­en or eight, and he had de­ter­mi­na­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion. When he went to law school, he want­ed out, and I was not in agree­ment with it. But it was his love and his pas­sion, you see, he was tour­ing since he was nine years old with Skif­fle; to the States, Cu­ba, Ja­maica, Brazil. So, he got an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the stage at an ear­ly age, which had an im­pres­sion­able mark on him and where he wants to be. So, when he made that de­ci­sion, as your child, you have to sup­port him. I stay away from him, though, be­cause of all kinds of com­ments on Face­book. I stepped back. I am not his mind, I wish him all the best,” Ju­nior said.

Re­grel­lo him­self is a na­tion­al awardee and has served as a for­mer chair­man, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, may­or and ex­ec­u­tive on sev­er­al boards — roles that mir­ror his life­long com­mit­ment to lead­er­ship, ser­vice and cul­ture.

As Skif­fle Bunch cel­e­brates five decades, its sto­ry re­mains one of en­durance—proof that steel­pan is not mere­ly mu­sic, but iden­ti­ty, dis­ci­pline and hope forged through gen­er­a­tions.