SUNDAY 14 MAY, 2017 – UWI TODAY
19
Seeking Sir Frank
B Y V A N E I S A B A K S H
CRICKET MATTERS
After Patrick Hosein
delivered his first professorial lecture
– an academic rite of passage – many questions came from
the small audience at the Engineering Lecture Theatre.
The one that struck me the most was the one from Irwin
Williams, a 35-year-old software architect who had done
the Data Communications course with Hosein as part of
his Master’s programme.
He was distressed he said because when he listened to
the Professor describe the work he has done (featured on
Page 7), he realized just how far and phenomenal had been
his reach. “How is it that the luminaries, say in computer
science, cannot be found in any texts?” He explained that
there was nothing biographical to be found about them,
so students did not grasp their importance or the range of
their work.
It struck me enough that I contactedWilliams a couple
weeks later, just to ask himwhy this mattered. In the course
of our conversation, he talked about how Lloyd Best’s ideas
had subconsciously permeated him with the feeling that “I
can be part of making society.”
It seems that developed into feelings of responsibility,
of belonging and of caring about the country’s welfare.
It was why I had been struck when he spoke at the
lecture. For almost a year, I have been gathering information
on the life of Sir Frank Worrell for a biography. March 13
marked 50 years since his death in 1967 at the age of 42.
I have been hither and thither following any clue I can
find to bring texture and detail to the life of a man who
has been a monumental figure in the development of West
Indian civilization, but who is mostly remembered as the
first black captain of the West Indies cricket team, and the
captain of the tied Test at Brisbane, Australia in the 1960-
61 series.
Arguably, cricket has inspired
the most artistic devotion
of any sport in the world. Songs, sculptures, paintings,
exhibitions and books of all genres: fiction, biographies,
sociological and historical studies; the corpus is remarkable
when you think about it.
In the course of my own academic research, I discovered
that over a century, probably a hundred biographies and
autobiographies have been published on West Indian
cricketers alone. During that research, I was also struck by
the sheer volume of calypsoes that have been composed on
the subject. Professor Gordon Rohlehr has done a wonderful
job of analyzing this body of work, and has provided
researchers with context within which to understand the
environments that spawned these musical editorials.
In November 2016, a discography of sorts was
published by Nasser Khan, a cricket enthusiast and a prolific
writer on a diverse range of subjects. The book, “History of
West Indies Cricket through Calypsoes” was financed by
NAGICO Insurances, as part of a youth literacy initiative
to be distributed to regional high schools (167 in T&T) at
no charge. This effort that hopes to find an off-the-syllabus
method of encouraging reading is to be commended because
it can fill many voids. It combines four areas, music, history,
sociology and sport and allows the seeker to imbibe them
freely without feeling that they are being mandated to
“study.”
The book carries lyrics, articles, photos and drawings,
and profiles of players and calypsonians, as well as a list of
all West Indian cricketers from 1928 (when the West Indies
first achieved Test status) to 2016, and some scorecards of
milestone matches.
It’s Good-bye fromWorrell.
Frank Worrell, West Indies captain who
led his men to victory in the recent Test series, waves good-bye as
he leaves the Waldorf Hotel, Aldwych, for London Airport to return
home to-day (Friday). Under present arrangements, the West Indians
are not due back in England before 1971, but so entertaining has
been their cricket on the tour that there are hopes they may be seen
here lonf before that.
(From the Dickens Press on September 20, 1963.)
Frank Worrell filled a much larger role, and I am
writing about this here because the question Mr. Williams
asked of Professor Hosein is relevant to a whole Caribbean
pantheon, who are robbed of their chance to be true
exemplars because we have not recorded or paid tribute to
their accomplishments.
Few people know that asWarden andDirector of Sports
at The UWI (at Mona and then St. Augustine) Worell was
all about nurturing and mentoring students. Few people
know how zealously he travelled the length and breadth of
this Caribbean chain to help set up facilities, coaching and
training programmes for cricketers. Few people know how
many times he took money fromhis own pockets to finance
all sorts of developmental undertakings.
Sir Frank did not study atThe UWI, he graduated from
the University of Manchester, where it seemed he became
acquainted with Arthur Lewis, who was a professor of
economics there (and the first black man to be appointed
a professor in the UK), and it may have been through Sir
Arthur, who became Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, that he
was encouraged to take up an appointment at the Mona
Campus.
The research so far has been fascinating as a deeply
complex picture of the man emerges. The problem is that
because we have not been good archivists, records are lost
and people who knew Sir Frank well are disappearing from
our midst.
In a sense then, this is a public appeal for information.
If anyone has any knowledge to share about Sir Frank,
especially about his early childhood years in Bank Hall,
Barbados, I would be happy to hear from them.
From left: Columnist and author Nasser Khan; Campus Librarian at UWI St. Augustine, Frank Sooden, and Kevin Davis, Executive Manager of
Sales and Marketing, NAGICO Insurances, at the handover ceremony at the Alma Jordan Library.
In the introduction Khan notes that between 1926 and
2016, “some 215 cricket-themed calypsos (not including
remakes, those calypsoes that were re-recorded by other
calypsonians) have been composed and sung, recorded
and documented.”
Khan has found a way to reproduce these lyrics, which
would be a welcome addition to any cricket or calypso
lover’s library, but it is not for sale. It is a pity, though with
additional sponsorship it might be able to have broader
distribution.
An online quiz/contest to engage students is envisaged
in due course via NAGICO.
The book is already available at various libraries, and
on April 19, Khan and Kevin Davis, the Executive Manager
of Sales and Marketing at NAGICO Insurances (who was
very involved in seeing the book come to pass) visited the
Alma Jordan Library at the St. Augustine Campus to present
copies of the book to add to its collection.
Davis told the gathering at the handover ceremony that
apart from its support for cricket, NAGICOwas committed
to developing literacy and adopted the Cumaca RC Primary
School and has built a library for the students and are in the
process of stocking it with books. It is the kind of gesture
that our corporate citizens might want to emulate.
(Vaneisa Baksh)
CRICKET CALYPSOES AT THE LIBRARY
