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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 stated now escapes me it could have been one thing alongside the traces of ‘What may he have achieved however for his premature demise?’.
The dearth of any actual information past the idea of his Check profession and his sadly early demise have 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 good friend he misplaced in that tragic highway accident in 1959.
It was inevitable subsequently that when, just a few years later, I discovered an outlet for my musings with regards to cricket and cricketers that one of many first topics I wished to jot down 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 by 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 ebook, titled The Glad 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 supplier’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 ebook.
By 2012 I had seen no different copy of The Glad Warrior so, on the idea I had researched all over the place else that I may discover point out of Collie, I wrote the function, that appeared as this, back in March 2012. I used to be pleased sufficient with the outcome 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 ebook ever appeared.
For the following dozen years I stored on searching for the ebook. I repeatedly requested sellers, in hope moderately 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 supplier’s web site, in a listing or up for public sale. I additionally trawled eBay every day, and repeatedly used quite a lot 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. Through the years I’ve additionally had dealings with just a few purchasers whose roots have been in Jamaica, and have provided all of them big reductions on charges if they may supply a duplicate for me. It received to the stage the place I’ve made related affords 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 electronic mail handle for creator Kenneth Chaplin, sadly not with us. To be honest to him Chaplin did reply to my electronic mail, albeit merely to say moderately unhelpfully that the ebook ‘has lengthy been out of print’ and ‘I can’t make it easier to with discovering a duplicate’. I did ask him just a few observe up questions on who revealed the ebook, 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 ebook 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 ebook is proscribed by the variety of copies printed, however then curiosity in Collie was big. Tens of hundreds of Jamaicans turned out for his funeral, so there was certainly a requirement. I may also settle for that lots of those that did purchase copies weren’t cricketing bibliophiles, nor certainly ‘ebook individuals’ in any respect, however certainly some copies should have been stored?
I may also recognize that in 1960 the world was a a lot bigger place, and information of the ebook’s publication might not have reached far, however certainly a number of the many associates who Collie made in his two seasons within the Lancashire League with Burnley would have heard of the ebook’s existence and made positive just a few copies arrived right here?
Nicely it finally looks like at the least one did as, just a few weeks in the past, I received 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 duplicate of The Glad 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 one of the best of my recollection the unique itemizing should have gone up at the least eight hours earlier than I noticed it – am I actually the one cricket collector with an obsession with The Glad 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 fun of the acquisition conquers all. Thus I had owned The Glad 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 creator, I had came upon, handed away in 2019 on the age of 90. He was a profession journalist, not primarily in sport reporting, however you merely should 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 worried his foremost contribution appears to have been as a soccer referee, and a FIFA recognised one for 18 years. So far as I can see The Glad Warrior is his solely ebook.
I had puzzled 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 actually mistaken, because the ebook is a well-written one and sheds quite a lot of mild on Collie’s upbringing, his non secular 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 function there may be, I used to be happy to notice, nothing to vary. I had managed to choose up all of Collie’s cricketing achievements from elsewhere, though have been I writing the function right now I might need talked about having lastly realized 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 Glad 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 offers 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 rationalization for that.
It goes with out saying that I used to be delighted to lastly observe down a duplicate of a ebook I’ve been actively searching for for one of the best 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’m wondering what will probably be?
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