AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Wayne Lee-Sing and I am a jamette for theatre.
I was actually born in Kingsbury Maternity Hospital, Wembley, London.
My mother, who was in England then but was from Moruga, had not married my father.
She brought me back to Trinidad when I was six. And I’ve been here since, apart from trips away and some jobs.
I met my dad when I went back to England when I was 25.
My mom is the original feminist. She went up to England with her (girl) cousin alone and Trinidad was still a colony.
She didn’t put my dad’s name on my birth certificate. She gave me her name.
She died in ’85, (of)a type of cancer so rare, her doctor wrote up her case history for medical journals.
I’m married to Louris Martin-Lee-Sing since 2003. I was 39 and was pretty certain I wouldn’t ever get married but I was really happy to marry her.
If you look at my daughters’ names, Kem and Iris, you see a theme in my life: I’ve always been surrounded and influenced by strong women: Claudette, my mother; Nem, her mother; (Trinidad Tent Theatre founder) Ellen O’Malley Camps; Louris; and now my daughters. Kem was my mother’s Chinese home-name, given to her by her father.
The Chinese home-name he gave me is Wahwing. But nobody ever calls me that.
Retrospect is a helluva thing. My mom and I were real close. Even though I was an a---hole. She did everything she could for me. And I would say real hurtful things.
But I know now that I was hurting, too. The father thing was always a sticking point between us. She never gave me any information about my father until she knew she was terminal.
And I never got along with my stepfather.
But she was sick.
People just look at me and assume I’m a foreigner.
Primary school, I went to San Fernando Boys’ RC.
When I think back on it, parts of that were very horrific! I used to get picked on and bullied quite a bit by this group of boys. The only name they called me was “Honky.” Never once by my name.
And I used to take it and never complain, never tell anybody, because I wanted to fit in.
Those days, who could I even talk to anyway? I suppose I’m kind of psychoanalysing myself, but as a small kid, I just wished I was black!
When I got into Pres, the whole race thing went from being a very big issue to a non-issue.
None of those boys who bullied me got into Pres and they wouldn’t stand it in Presentation College anyway.
Sando and Pres are much more representative of Trinidad as a whole. It’s half African, half Indian, with a smattering of everything else. One or two white boys, a couple o’ Chinee guys, like how Trinidad itself is.
My wife Louris is the programme manager for the Best Village competition.
I’m really into photography now and was taking pictures for her of this drum group in Belmont. All of a sudden the Rastaman leading the group starts to berate me!
I find I’m judged a lot on my appearance by people who would not like to be judged by their appearance. They stereotype me – but I’m sure that is the exact opposite of what they would wan
