Aldwyn Roberts, known as Lord Kitchener, ended his 62-year calypso career on Friday. He was born in Arima on April 18,1922. He received his primary education at the Arima Boys' Government School and fulfilled his call to calypso in Arima around 1937. According to the late Carl Malcolm Murphy, one of the founders of the National Safety Brigade, Kitchener made his stage debut in Arima, at an amateur concert which Murphy and others had organised. Some of the mothers of the young ladies who performed at the concert were annoyed with the organisers for allowing the lanky, "low-class" young man to sing a calypso on the same stage as their daughters. Kitch, as he is familiarly called, spent some years singing at shows in Arima, Cumuto and Sangre Grande before hitting on the tune which catapulted him into the serious calypso world in 1943. The calypso, "Green Fig Man", Kitch claimed, came to him as if by inspiration. He said that it was probably the calypso which took him the shortest time to compose.

The name "Kitchener" was given to him by calypsonian Growling Tiger. In 1946 Kitchener was invited to go to Curacao and Aruba. After fulfilling his obligations there, he went on his own to Jamaica, where he stayed for six months. He tried to get to the United States, but being unsuccessful, he opted for England, where he remained until 1963. It is generally believed that he returned to Trinidad because the Mighty Sparrow had become master of the calypso world. Kitchener refuted this suggestion. He said that he did not return specifically to perform or to continue singing in Trinidad. Someone had sent for him and he obliged. While here, he was persuaded to sing. He entered the Monarch competition, with everyone expecting him to place last. But he emerged in second place to Sparrow. That year he won the Road March, with "The Road Make to Walk On Carnival Day" the first of 13 Road March victories.

Kitch returned to England four times before settling permanently in Trinidad in 1967. He became famous for his steelband calypsoes, the first of which was composed in 1944. He said that the main influence for his steelband compositions came from constantly hearing Renegades Steelband music while he lived at La Cou Harpe, where Renegades practised. Kitchener was very much interested in sports, but his passion was for horse racing. He was also a keen player of "canal jockeys" and spent many a Saturday morning or afternoon, with other players and racing jockeys in the big drain at the paddock in the Queen's Park Savannah.