2 weeks Ago
Part I There’s an immediate challenge in compiling a biography of someone who was a legend during his lifetime. Inevitably, myths spring up, so that even if you can separate fact from fiction, it is almost sacrilege to bring balance to the scrutiny because people prefer to hold on to their folklores. Frank Worrell was such a man, and my biography, Son of Grace, attempted to provide a balanced view of him.
A towering figure in the West Indian imagination from as early as the mid-forties, when he had just entered his twenties, up to his untimely death in March 1967, when he was still a young man of 42; the aura that surrounded him still shimmers a century after his birth. He became a dominant cricketing figure in the 1950s; along with Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes, the dashing Barbadian trio immortalised as the Three Ws after the historic tour of England in 1950 when the West Indies beat the English at Lord’s. It is not widely known that he was offered the captaincy for Pakistan’s visit in 1958 (when Garfield Sobers made his maiden Test century with the record 365 not out) and then for the subsequent trip to India and Pakistan, but he declined on both occasions on account of his studies at the University of Manchester.
By the time he graduated in 1959, he was ready to accept the captaincy for the tour to Australia, and a position at The University of the West Indies upon his return. That Australian tour, like the one of England in 1950, was a defining episode in the history of West Indies cricket. The difference between the two was that what happened in Australia affected the world of Test cricket.
It brought it back to life, not just because of the tied Test at Brisbane, but because both teams played competitive, sporting cricket that made fans rejoice once again. From the sixties, until his death in 1967, he was more of an icon as a West Indian leader, whose qualities of grace and wisdom framed him as the ideal representative of a society still constructing its identity. Yet, for much of his career he was plagued by insecurities; haunted by traumas and embittered by inequities within the social structures that dominated regional life.
To understand his complexity, one had to dig deep into the forces that shaped him: the childhood years that are often overlooked as significant foundations in the development of the adult. Because he was not given to public utterances, several inaccuracies still exist, unchallenged. As with often repeated tales, they have solidified into facts about him and his career choices.
His early years in Barbados left many scars, particularly during his stay at Combermere, where he carried the humiliation of being called a big-head by the headmaster, who regularly took a cane to his backside. This was a personal wound but it was exacerbated by the rigid social demarcations of the country, which left him excluded from the opportunities he sought to make a living. Despite his cricket fame, he couldn’t earn an income, so when he received an offer to go to Jamaica under the sponsorship of Ruel Vaz, a wealthy businessman, who became his godfather for life, he took it.
That was in 1947, and he never lived in Barbados again. In 1963, Ernest Eytle had published a biography of Worrell, and at the end of each chapter, Worrell added his comments. Here is what he said in the second chapter: “I was unfortunate enough to have been under an endemic psychological and mental strain throughout my schooldays; so much so that by the time I had reached the fourth form I was suffering from a persecution complex.
“These were the days when child psychology was not a subject demanded of applicants for the pupil-teacher posts that were held in schools; nor indeed did the majority of the masters have the experience of raising families of their own. It was a matter of learning mainly by repetition and retention. There was no allowance made for the original point of view.
This is still fairly true of the attitude of so large a section of the population that it can be regarded as a characteristic.” It had been a long time since those Combermere days, but the impact lingered. It is something we must be mindful of in the way we treat our children.
Wes Hall would tell me that Worrell tried to channel his hyper-energy, and set out a ten-year career plan for him. Sir Garfield Sobers told me that arriving in England with no real support system, he found himself regularly welcomed at the Worrell home, where he got home-cooked meals, company, and advice. He counselled the Indian bowler, the late Bishan Singh Bedi, who told me with such joy of how Worrell had singled him out at the ceremony at the Punjabi University where he was bestowed an honorary doctorate the month before he died in 1967.
There are countless stories of these acts of mentorship and nurturing. These form the motif of his life and, more than anything else, it is what I feel sums up the invaluable contribution he made to civilisation. He genuinely believed in helping the people around him.
He preferred to build rather than destroy. • Part II next week looks at the complexity of Frank Worrell as a human and a hero. —Vaneisa Baksh is an editor, writer and cricket historian.
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