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 will need to have been due to tales my father instructed me, and though precisely what he mentioned now escapes me it might have been one thing alongside the strains of ‘What may he have achieved however for his premature demise?’.
The dearth of any actual information past the premise of his Take a look at profession and his sadly early demise had been a supply of frustration for someday, however one thing that I discovered simple sufficient to dwell with till I received spherical to studying Garry Sobers’ 2002 revealed 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 due to this fact that when, just a few years later, I discovered an outlet for my musings as regards to cricket and cricketers that one of many first topics I needed to write 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 varied histories of West Indies cricket and accounts of the few sequence by which Collie appeared. However what I couldn’t monitor 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 suppose that maybe it was a type of books that was written however by no means really revealed, however then I did see a duplicate. It was in a seller’s store, however was not in nice situation, was not substantial and, even when I may have overcome these considerations, was priced approach 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 all over the place else that I may discover point out of Collie, I wrote the function, that appeared as this, again in March 2012. I used to be pleased sufficient with the consequence and, at all times the great thing about something that seems on line, figured I may tinker with it when and if a duplicate of the e book ever appeared.
For the following dozen years I saved on on the lookout for the e book. I often requested sellers, in hope slightly than expectation, whether or not they had copies and the reply was at all times no. I by no means noticed a duplicate on a seller’s web site, in a listing or up for public sale. I additionally trawled eBay every day, and often used a wide range of search websites within the hope somebody someplace on the earth would checklist a duplicate.
So obsessed was I with this search that I took to asking everybody within the Caribbean that I got here throughout to maintain an eye fixed open for a duplicate for me. Over time I’ve additionally had dealings with just a few shoppers whose roots had been in Jamaica, and have provided all of them large reductions on charges if they may supply a duplicate for me. It received to the stage the place I’ve made related gives to anybody I do know with probably 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 not with us. To be honest to him Chaplin did reply to my e mail, albeit merely to say slightly unhelpfully that the e book ‘has lengthy been out of print’ and ‘I can’t aid you with discovering a duplicate’. I did ask him just a few observe up questions on who revealed the e book, the dimensions of its print run and the like however, maybe understandably, I didn’t hear from him once more.
I typically contemplated why the e book ought to be so vanishingly uncommon. It wasn’t a restricted version as such, though I settle for that could be a misnomer within the sense that any e book is proscribed 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 certainly a requirement. I can even settle for that lots of those that did purchase copies weren’t cricketing bibliophiles, nor certainly ‘e book folks’ in any respect, however certainly some copies will need to have been saved?
I can even admire that in 1960 the world was a a lot bigger place, and information of the e book’s publication could not have reached far, however certainly a few of the many buddies who Collie made in his two seasons within the Lancashire League with Burnley would have heard of the e book’s existence and made certain just a few copies arrived right here?
Effectively it in the end looks as if a minimum of one did as, just a few weeks in the past, I received dwelling 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 duplicate 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 duplicate of Collie Smith’s biography duly turned up at my home. Essentially the most outstanding factor in regards to the sale was that to the most effective of my recollection the unique itemizing will need to 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 imagine places us properly and actually ‘on the spectrum’, is that the fun of the acquisition conquers all. Thus I had owned The Joyful Warrior for a full six weeks earlier than the considered really 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 really did so. Would it not have made a lot distinction to the function I wrote all these years in the past? I reasoned that I owed it to myself to seek 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 predominant 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 shortage 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 a substantial amount of mild on Collie’s upbringing, his spiritual values and his life at dwelling. 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 function there may be, I used to be happy to notice, nothing to vary. I had managed to select up all of Collie’s cricketing achievements from elsewhere, though had been I writing the function right this moment I might 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, excluding Gerry Alexander who offers a foreword, spoken to any of Collie’s West Indies teammates. The e book could be very a lot a case of 1 Jamaican paying tribute to a different, so maybe that’s the rationalization for that.
It goes with out saying that I used to be delighted to lastly monitor down a duplicate of a e book I’ve been actively on the lookout for for the most effective 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 vitality to discovering – i’m wondering what it is going to be?
