It’s a cold and quiet New Year’s Day at Woodbrook Playground, Woodbrook. With overcast skies above, the ‘bat man’ (referring to the old mas, bat costume), Matthew ‘Star’ Whiley, along with a small collection of friends, begins cleaning and setting up for an annual lime that they arrange for the children of Woodbrook.
Fallen leaves are raked. A stage is set up, though not used because of the continual drizzle. Instead, most of the day’s activity becomes confined to the gazebo at the centre of Wookbrook Playground, where food, drinks, and snacks are set. Only a small number of guests arrive — more of Matthew’s friends, as well as a tiny, Latin American family who might have been wandering past and gotten curious.
The slow afternoon is finally broken when the steel side, The Brimblers, arrive, setting up very quicky in the moments before the Sun sinks from the sky. As Woodbrook falls into deep, blue twilight, steelpan music rings out brightly across the surrounding field and off into the neighbourhood.
