Martin Chandler | 8:04am BST 25 August 2024
The identify 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 informed me, and though precisely what he stated now escapes me it will have been one thing alongside the strains of ‘What may he have achieved however for his premature loss of life?’.
The dearth of any actual data past the premise of his Take a look at profession and his sadly early loss of life have been a supply of frustration for someday, however one thing that I discovered simple sufficient to stay with till I obtained spherical to studying Garry Sobers’ 2002 printed My Autobiography, the opening chapter of which is a heartfelt homily to the buddy he misplaced in that tragic highway accident in 1959.
It was inevitable due to this fact that when, a number of years later, I discovered an outlet for my musings with regards to cricket and cricketers that one of many first topics I wished to put in writing about was Collie Smith.
There are books aplenty which were 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 through 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 ebook, titled The Completely satisfied 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 kind of books that was written however by no means really printed, however then I did see a duplicate. It was in a vendor’s store, however was not in nice situation, was not substantial and, even when I might have overcome these considerations, was priced means in extra of what in these days I used to be ready to pay for a cricket ebook.
By 2012 I had seen no different copy of The Completely satisfied Warrior so, on the premise I had researched in every single place else that I might discover point out of Collie, I wrote the function, that appeared as this, again in March 2012. I used to be comfortable sufficient with the outcome and, all the time the great thing about something that seems on line, figured I might tinker with it when and if a duplicate of the ebook ever appeared.
For the following dozen years I saved on searching for the ebook. I usually 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 duplicate on a vendor’s web site, in a listing or up for public sale. I additionally trawled eBay day by day, and usually used a wide range of search websites within the hope somebody someplace on the planet would record 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 a watch open for a duplicate for me. Over time I’ve additionally had dealings with a number of shoppers whose roots have been in Jamaica, and have supplied all of them big reductions on charges if they might supply a duplicate for me. It obtained to the stage the place I’ve made comparable provides 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 electronic mail tackle for writer Kenneth Chaplin, sadly not with us. To be truthful to him Chaplin did reply to my electronic mail, albeit merely to say quite unhelpfully that the ebook ‘has lengthy been out of print’ and ‘I can’t aid you with discovering a duplicate’. I did ask him a number of comply with up questions on who printed the ebook, 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 ebook must 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 ebook is proscribed by the variety of copies printed, however then curiosity in Collie was big. Tens of 1000’s of Jamaicans turned out for his funeral, so there was absolutely a requirement. I may also settle for that lots of those that did purchase copies weren’t cricketing bibliophiles, nor certainly ‘ebook folks’ in any respect, however absolutely some copies will need to have been saved?
I may also recognize that in 1960 the world was a a lot bigger place, and information of the ebook’s publication could 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 ebook’s existence and made positive a number of copies arrived right here?
Properly it finally looks as if not less than one did as, a number of weeks in the past, I obtained 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 Completely satisfied 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 very best of my recollection the unique itemizing will need to have gone up not less than eight hours earlier than I noticed it – am I actually the one cricket collector with an obsession with The Completely satisfied 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 Completely satisfied 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 search out out.
The 62 pages took lower than an hour to learn. Its writer, 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 must google his identify 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 important contribution appears to have been as a soccer referee, and a FIFA recognised one for 18 years. So far as I can see The Completely satisfied Warrior is his solely ebook.
I had questioned if maybe the ebook was merely not superb, and that the dearth of high quality contributed to why it was so elusive. That thought was definitely mistaken, because the ebook is a well-written one and sheds quite a lot of gentle 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 by way of my function 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 have been I writing the function at present I may need talked about having lastly discovered the place the identify ‘Collie’ got here from, the reason being it was a pet identify, 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 Completely satisfied 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, except Gerry Alexander who supplies a foreword, spoken to any of Collie’s West Indies teammates. The ebook 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 monitor down a duplicate of a ebook I’ve been actively searching for for the very best a part of 20 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 will probably be?
