Sunday, January 29, 2012

Brain drain

This from a famous Trinidad calypso of 1968.

There are at least two sides to every argument about migration – it is not just those on the receiving end of inward migration who feel the need to protest.

And Stockport is one of those places which has benefited from having its own steel band.

from Brain Drain

So many good technicians away,
So many good doctors & engineers don’t stay,
But on teachers & nurses they put a strain,
And when they leave, people bawl ‘Brain Drain!’
Look, CLR James, that great writer,
He should be at UWI teaching literature.
Cricketers like Legall & Ramdeen
Still teaching the English to bat & spin.

Foreign artists coming here & getting jobs,
And Andrew Beddoe can’t make some bobs!
Why not put in every school a steelbandsman
To train children to beat pan?
Our children don’t know what’s B-flat on pan,
While the US Army & all have steelband!
That is what I call Brain Drain.