Ronald Williams, a semi-retired Environmental Engineer, explains the origins of the word "liming" which is now part and parcel of the vocabulary of Trinidad and Tobago. His view of "liming" is from Port of Spain Central, and of middle class origin. The main purpose of "liming" in the forties and fifties was for male bonding and generally took place outdoors, with minimum rain, filled with old talk and fatigue.
Williams sums it up as "a group inactivity at its pleasurable best which might start at a home, but usually moved on to an event of some sort." Needless to say, this was before the prevalence of the motor car in Port of Spain Central and also before young women got their freedom to venture forth on their own, especially after dark.
Limers, says Williams, "were mostly groups of five to ten young, cycling males (17 to 23 years old), with a common background based on their family neighbourhood or their passion for one sport or another, like Sunday morning football or pass-out."
"Whistlers" were from Newtown, and football was their interest; "Pickwick" from Belmont liked cricket; and "Kent" from Woodbrook had mixed interests.
"The nature of the occasion normally dictated the time and the place of the lime" explains Williams.
"A sporting event, for instance, would mean a daytime lime at the savannah, afterwork during the week, and throughout the day on the week-end. If the lime was outside a house fete, it would be in any Port of Spain neighbourhood, at night. Nature limes at Maracas, Mayaro or down-the-islands would require special bussing arrangements for both sexes, preferably on long week-ends or during the August holidays."
In pre-television days, attendance at movies was a popular nighttime lime, and on the week-end it was not unusual for some boys to attend four movies on a Saturday - 9.30 a.m., 1.30, 4.30 and 8.30 p.m. After all, says Williams "there were many cinemas in the city - De Luxe, Globe, Empire, Royal. Olympic in Belmont. London in Woodbrook, and both Roxy and Rialto in St James."
But a movie could be just part of a lime. For instance, after St Mary's College beat Queen's Royal College 2-1 in the 1946 Intercol in the savannah, the team celebrated with a lime at the home of one of their players at the corner of Park and Edward Streets, then proceeded to a movie at Globe Theatre, after which the lime continued at a Woodbrook fete and only terminated at 5 a.m. Mass that Sunday morning at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Newtown.
Liming a fete "had its own charm" says Williams "and benefits, whether it was a three and one sub-fete, that is $3 for men and $1 for women (food and drinks free), or a birthnight, or even a wedding which would be a 4 to 9 p.m. event. The first part of a wedding lime tended to be a girls' session outside,say, the then popular Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. The attractions were dress design, colour, and who- was-with-who." On occasion, when bridesmaids were too scantily dressed and were dismissed from the altar area by a disciplinary priest, not an uncommon happening at St Francis Roman Catholic Church in Belmont, then there was more to talk about.
Naturally, like all other fetes, the real male lime was outside the home or hall where the wedding was celebrated after the church ceremony. For limers, these fetes whether at Christmas, Carnival, Easter or when, provided the following benefits throughout the lime:
- musical and sometimes stylish dancing entertainment;
- free drinks and eats depending on the co-operation of legitimate partygoers who would join the limers with such 'gifts' from time to time;
- old talk, jokes, fatigue and male bonding among limers;
- unescorted female party-goers would be potential dates for enthusiastic limers who were prepared to wait and see them home, after a walk in the park, of course.
"Perhaps, the greatest triumph" says Williams "was the fact that, in the right set of circumstances, a limer with a drink in hand could "storm" the fete through the front door; and with the help of a friend in the fete who vouched for him, could stay on in the fete and enjoy the full benefits as all the paying patrons."
For the youth of Port of Spain, the popular sporting area for liming was, without doubt, the Queen's Park Savannah, not only on the week- ends, but also after work. The main sporting events were football and cricket; "but for serious "bird-watching" it had to be ladies field hockey" says Williams, who did find his wife of nearly forty years, Paddy Fernandes, one of this country's leading full backs, on the hockey field opposite the Queen's Park Hotel. Netball was the other sport which introduced women to the savannah on a permanent basis, first as players and later on as limers.
There was also liming at kite-flying around Easter, and at the regular horse-racing seasons, but as Williams himself experienced "savannah liming sometimes went further than sport." For it was while liming on a savannah bench that Williams and John Fong Chong discussed going abroad to study. Two years later, in September 1953, at ages 24 and 26, they both boarded a Panam flight from New York, and took the train to Toronto, where they studied engineering and dentistry. "Imagine it all started in a lime" says Williams.
To-day, Williams sees an increase in '"nature liming, thanks to the proliferation of the motor vehicle and new sensitivity towards the natural environment." Groups now go hiking in the northern range, or beaching with the turtles on the east coast, or boating down-the- islands. But this Caribbean environmentalist is quick to point out that there was always nature liming, whether it was during the school holidays on Gasparee or Monos, or on the east coast beaches of Mayaro and Manzanilla. While for long week-ends Maracas was always good for a boys' camp by bicycle, one-day cycling trips were to Blue Basin in Diego Martin, and Maracas Falls/River in St Joseph, or as far west as Teteron Bay.
For Williams, "the best nature lime was later in the sixties when moonlight picnics at Maracas Bay and elsewhere became popular. Cars were available, so too were portable music, transportable food and drinks, and both sexes were free to venture forth along the moonlit beach."
"It is clear that no matter what decade it is, liming is an enjoyable feature of our tropical climate and our easy-going Trini attitude....La Nina showers or no La Nina showers."