AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Mary-Anne Roberts and, with my “Carnival mentality,” I created a yard where the dead could play and find peace.

My yard, the installation Spirited, was created by Adeola Dewis, Miguela Gonzalez, Cindy Ward and me.

It will remain part of the National Museum of Wales Reframing Picton commission until the end of September 2023.

Even if I’ve now lived longer in Cardiff than I did in Trinidad, the warp and weft of me is Trinidad. My first memories are of Belmont, but we moved around a lot. St Augustine St James. Diego Martin, Santa Cruz, Newtown.

It’s probably more accurate to say I come from Cardiff in Wales now, only because there is no longer a Mary-Anne-shaped hole in Trinidad.

I come from a big family and have a small family of my own. Husband and two (adult) kids.

We’ve lived on the same street for over 30 years. Because I moved around so much when I was younger, I don’t want to move around now.

Primary school was Mucurapo Girls’ and then St Joseph’s Convent.

After A-levels at St James Government Secondary, I taught the curriculum at La Jeunesse Tutorials through art and theatre. Under the tutelage of Janet Baptiste-John. It was a school specifically for children with learning disabilities who didn’t

look like they had learning disabilities. Janet was dealing with ADHD since the 70s.

Another part of my education was Tent Theatre with Ellen O’Malley Camps back when she was Helen Camps.

The final part was at Caribbean School of Dancing.

I don’t really know how to box clever.

I was raised RC, but I grew up in Trinidad.

So when my father was doing evening classes in St James, we were over in the mandir. Getting fed dhal and rice!

My best friend was a Muslim girl! Anisha Asgarali, Salome Ali Bocas, we all went Mucurapo together.

[caption id="attachment_973510" align="alignnone" width="998"] Mary-Anne Roberts photographed in 1982 as a performer with Trinidad Tent Theatre. - Mark Lyndersay[/caption]

I believe in people! And making what we do now count!

The afterlife will look after itself. But I’ll try praying, too. Give it a shot. Belt and braces, you know?

When the children were young, I used to try to come to Trinidad every year.

When they became teenagers and we had to pay adult prices for everybody, visits to Trinidad declined massively.

My daughter spent a year in Trinidad when she was eight. My parents loved it and it was huge for her grounding in who she is.

Tony Hall asked her what she learned at Belmont Girls Primary.

“I learned to curse,” she said. “I learned to wine. And I learned long division.”

What more you want in life?

Back in the 80s, everybody was wearing black and having their hair pulled back tight with red lips.

And I was there with my big, pouffy hair, no makeup and pink jumpers. I used to look at myself in that double image you get of yourself in the opposite window of the tube and think, “God, you’re so ugly!”

One day, in Peter Jones, buying something, I looked across and saw someone and said to myself, “That l