Martin Chandler | 8:04am BST 25 August 2024
The title of O’Neil Gordon ‘Collie’ Smith is one which has fascinated me all my life, though I can’t recall now simply how that began. It should have been due to tales my father advised me, and though precisely what he mentioned now escapes me it could have been one thing alongside the strains of ‘What may he have achieved however for his premature dying?’.
The shortage of any actual information past the premise of his Check profession and his sadly early dying had been a supply of frustration for someday, however one thing that I discovered straightforward sufficient to stay with till I bought spherical to studying Garry Sobers’ 2002 printed My Autobiography, the opening chapter of which is a heartfelt homily to the pal he misplaced in that tragic highway accident in 1959.
It was inevitable subsequently that when, a couple of years later, I discovered an outlet for my musings with reference to cricket and cricketers that one of many first topics I wished to jot down about was Collie Smith.
There are books aplenty which have been written about Sobers, and I discovered materials in these in addition to books by or about Everton Weekes, Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott in addition to numerous histories of West Indies cricket and accounts of the few sequence during which Collie appeared. However what I couldn’t observe down was a biography of Collie himself, and I knew there was one because it had a passing point out on, of all locations, his Wikipedia web page.
The place I couldn’t discover any reference to the e book, titled The Joyful Warrior and written by Kenneth Chaplin, was in Padwick’s Bibliography of Cricket. The primary version of Padwick appeared in 1977, and an up to date and expanded second version seven years later. I did for some time assume that maybe it was a type of books that was written however by no means truly printed, however then I did see a replica. It was in a supplier’s store, however was not in nice situation, was not substantial and, even when I might have overcome these considerations, was priced method in extra of what in these days I used to be ready to pay for a cricket e book.
By 2012 I had seen no different copy of The Joyful Warrior so, on the premise I had researched in every single place else that I might discover point out of Collie, I wrote the characteristic, that appeared as this, again in March 2012. I used to be pleased sufficient with the outcome and, all the time the fantastic thing about something that seems on line, figured I might tinker with it when and if a replica of the e book ever appeared.
For the following dozen years I stored on in search of the e book. I often requested sellers, in hope quite than expectation, whether or not they had copies and the reply was all the time no. I by no means noticed a replica on a supplier’s web site, in a listing or up for public sale. I additionally trawled eBay every day, and often used quite a lot of search websites within the hope somebody someplace on this planet would listing a replica.
So obsessed was I with this search that I took to asking everybody within the Caribbean that I got here throughout to maintain a watch open for a replica for me. Through the years I’ve additionally had dealings with a couple of shoppers whose roots had been in Jamaica, and have supplied all of them large reductions on charges if they might supply a replica for me. It bought to the stage the place I’ve made comparable affords to anybody I do know with essentially the most tenuous reference to the Caribbean, and naturally nothing ever got here of any of those requests for help.
At one stage I even managed to safe an e-mail deal with for creator Kenneth Chaplin, sadly now not with us. To be honest to him Chaplin did reply to my e-mail, albeit merely to say quite unhelpfully that the e book ‘has lengthy been out of print’ and ‘I can’t assist you with discovering a replica’. I did ask him a couple of comply with up questions on who printed the e book, the dimensions of its print run and the like however, maybe understandably, I didn’t hear from him once more.
I usually contemplated why the e book needs to be so vanishingly uncommon. It wasn’t a restricted version as such, though I settle for that may be a misnomer within the sense that any e book is restricted by the variety of copies printed, however then curiosity in Collie was large. Tens of 1000’s of Jamaicans turned out for his funeral, so there was absolutely a requirement. I also can settle for that lots of those that did purchase copies weren’t cricketing bibliophiles, nor certainly ‘e book folks’ in any respect, however absolutely some copies should have been stored?
I also can respect that in 1960 the world was a a lot bigger place, and information of the e book’s publication might not have reached far, however absolutely a few of the many pals who Collie made in his two seasons within the Lancashire League with Burnley would have heard of the e book’s existence and made positive a couple of copies arrived right here?
Effectively it in the end looks like a minimum of one did as, a couple of weeks in the past, I bought house from work and, for need of one thing to occupy my thoughts earlier than the 7pm information started, had a glance on eBay and, lo and behold, there was a replica of The Joyful Warrior, and I didn’t even have the stress of an public sale to endure because it had a ‘purchase it now’ value, which I duly paid.
And so, a few days later, a replica of Collie Smith’s biography duly turned up at my home. Probably the most outstanding factor in regards to the sale was that to the perfect of my recollection the unique itemizing should have gone up a minimum of eight hours earlier than I noticed it – am I actually the one cricket collector with an obsession with The Joyful Warrior?
One of many traits that collectors have, and one of many issues that I consider places us nicely and really ‘on the spectrum’, is that the joys of the acquisition conquers all. Thus I had owned The Joyful Warrior for a full six weeks earlier than the considered truly studying the factor occurred to me, and it was solely as a result of I used to be caught with little or no to do final Saturday morning that I truly did so. Wouldn’t it have made a lot distinction to the characteristic I wrote all these years in the past? I reasoned that I owed it to myself to search out out.
The 62 pages took lower than an hour to learn. Its creator, I had discovered, handed away in 2019 on the age of 90. He was a profession journalist, not primarily in sport reporting, however you merely need to google his title to see that he was a extremely revered man who served as press secretary to 4 Jamaican Prime Ministers. So far as sport is anxious his principal contribution appears to have been as a soccer referee, and a FIFA recognised one for 18 years. So far as I can see The Joyful Warrior is his solely e book.
I had questioned if maybe the e book was merely not excellent, and that the dearth of high quality contributed to why it was so elusive. That thought was definitely mistaken, because the e book is a well-written one and sheds an excessive amount of gentle on Collie’s upbringing, his spiritual values and his life at house. Letters that he wrote from England to his mom and his fiancee seem within the textual content to additional illustrate his character.
However when it comes to my characteristic there may be, I used to be happy to notice, nothing to alter. I had managed to choose up all of Collie’s cricketing achievements from elsewhere, though had been I writing the characteristic immediately I may need talked about having lastly discovered the place the title ‘Collie’ got here from, the reason being it was a pet title, after her maid Conchita, that Collie’s grandmother gave to him and which caught to him for the remainder of his days.
The one slight shock in The Joyful Warrior is that there isn’t any point out of the ‘particular relationship’ with Sobers, however then Chaplin had not so far as I can see, aside from Gerry Alexander who supplies a foreword, spoken to any of Collie’s West Indies teammates. The e book may be very a lot a case of 1 Jamaican paying tribute to a different, so maybe that’s the clarification for that.
It goes with out saying that I used to be delighted to lastly observe down a replica of a e book I’ve been actively in search of for the perfect a part of twenty years. Equally with success in lastly doing so one thing has gone out of my life, so I must discover one thing else to use the identical power to discovering – i ponder what it will likely be?
