At the age of 90, there are few people left that I have known from the time I was a small boy in British Guiana. I remember meeting Clairmonte and the other Taitts when I was about 11 years old. That would be around 1940. Our house was on the other side of the paling from Taitt’s yard in Murray Street. It was the storied “Taitt’s Yard” that saw the likes of Michael Gilkes, Wilbert Holder, Ricardo Smith, Marc Matthews and many who would go on to play important artistic roles in the Caribbean region. Among them, Clairmonte Taitt was the “star boy”. The son of Dr. Jabez and Aunt Dorothy Taitt, Clairmonte inherited a sharp intellect, musical talent, acting ability, athletic prowess and the courage to pursue a life in the arts.
From those early days, with perfect pitch, Clairmonte played the violin in the orchestra, played tenor pan and sang with a clear tenor voice. Music was an important feature of life in the Taitt’s house. For those of us from less musical families, we were exposed to a wide variety of musical genres in which Clairmonte excelled. He carried his love of music throughout his life.
Clairmonte was an active member of the Theatre Guild and he played a wide variety of roles over the years. There were many memorable theatre experiences we shared. Meanwhile he was a noted radio announcer on Guyana Broadcasting Service and Radio Demerara, and later in Barbados. Apart from other programming, he also produced a classical music programme.
Clairmonte was also a dancer. While his sister Helen became a professional dancer, the dance classes he took would form a part of the toolkit he brought to acting on stage. His ability to use his body effectively and expressively on stage stemmed in part from the control gained from those ballet classes.
Clairmonte was also a fine athlete. He took part in whatever sports we devised in the yard, from pole vaulting improvised with a bamboo pole, to the first basketball team in Guyana we created after seeing the Harlem Globetrotters at the cinema, to running hurdles after reading “The Science of Athletics” by Harold Abrams. We were always engaged in physical activity and athletics of some sort.
Clairmonte was the managing head coach of the first national basketball team to travel overseas. The team went to Suriname in 1957.
By the age of about 25, we had begun to go our separate ways, but all of us whose love of the arts and sports was honed in the Taitt’s yard would remain as lifelong brothers. Wilbert Holder was off to Trinidad, where he became a top actor; Michael Gilkes to England to become an academic, poet, and playwright; Marc Matthews to England as a performer; Ron Savory to St. Lucia as artist’ Laurence Taitt to England as champion hurdler; Ricardo Smith to Canada as multi-culturist, and so on.
Michael Gilkes’ one-man play, “Last of the Redmen” is based on Clairmonte’s life and the unique historical time in Guyana at the end of the British colonial era. The play teases out the important role of the arts in the movement from the end of the colonialism to independence. Many of the images and sounds from the play are reminiscent of the Taitt’s yard and the flourishing of the arts. While Michael envisioned Clairmonte playing the lead role, Michael ended up acting and narrating this huge role himself. Michael asked Clairmonte, and then me to act the part, but in our 80s, neither of us felt we could take on memorizing all of those lines. It is one of the finest plays anyone from Guyana has ever produced and it points to the pivotal roles of Clairmonte’s life and work in the arts in the Caribbean.
Clairmonte and Alma moved to Barbados with their family and he continued to pursue the arts, as they raised a family of creative individuals. I often admired the closeness of the family and the incredibly loving supportive home they created.
Clairmonte was one of the top theatre artists in Barbados, recognized with the Earl Warner Lifetime Achievement Award, among other accolades. He was a mentor to many over the course of his long career. Clairmonte worked extensively with Warner and was considered among the best actors to interpret his works.
Walk good my friend as you soar with the music of the spheres. It seems a powerful team is being formed on the other side with you as one of the “Last of the Redmen” joining the others who have gone before.
