The Quest For The Blissful Warrior

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 not recall now simply how that began. It will need to have been due to tales my father instructed me, and though precisely what he stated now escapes me it could have been one thing alongside the traces of ‘What would possibly he have achieved however for his premature dying?’.

The shortage of any actual data past the premise of his Check profession and his sadly early dying have been a supply of frustration for someday, however one thing that I discovered straightforward sufficient to dwell with till I bought 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 street accident in 1959.

It was inevitable subsequently that when, a number of years later, I discovered an outlet for my musings with reference to cricket and cricketers that one of many first topics I wished to write 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 varied histories of West Indies cricket and accounts of the few sequence wherein 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 e-book, titled The Blissful 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 truly revealed, however then I did see a replica. 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 e-book.

By 2012 I had seen no different copy of The Blissful Warrior so, on the premise I had researched all over the 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 blissful sufficient with the end result and, all the time the fantastic thing about something that seems on line, figured I might tinker with it when and if a replica of the e-book ever appeared.

For the subsequent dozen years I saved on on the lookout for the e-book. I commonly requested sellers, in hope reasonably than expectation, whether or not they had copies and the reply was all the time no. I by no means noticed a replica on a vendor’s web site, in a list or up for public sale. I additionally trawled eBay each day, and commonly used quite a lot of search websites within the hope somebody someplace on the earth would record a replica.

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 replica for me. Over time I’ve additionally had dealings with a number of purchasers whose roots have been in Jamaica, and have supplied all of them enormous reductions on charges if they may supply a replica for me. It bought to the stage the place I’ve made related presents 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 e-mail tackle for writer Kenneth Chaplin, sadly now not with us. To be truthful to him Chaplin did reply to my e-mail, albeit merely to say reasonably unhelpfully that the e-book ‘has lengthy been out of print’ and ‘I can not allow you to with discovering a replica’. I did ask him a number of observe up questions on who revealed the e-book, the scale 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 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 e-book is restricted by the variety of copies printed, however then curiosity in Collie was enormous. Tens of hundreds 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 individuals’ in any respect, however certainly some copies will need to have been saved?

I can even recognize that in 1960 the world was a a lot bigger place, and information of the e-book’s publication might not have reached far, however certainly a number of the many pals 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 a number of copies arrived right here?

Effectively it in the end looks like a minimum of one did as, a number of weeks in the past, I bought residence 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 replica of The Blissful Warrior, and I didn’t even have the stress of an public sale to endure because it had a ‘purchase it now’ worth, which I duly paid.

And so, a few days later, a replica of Collie Smith’s biography duly turned up at my home. Probably the most exceptional factor concerning the sale was that to the perfect 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 Blissful Warrior?

One of many traits that collectors have, and one of many issues that I consider places us properly and really ‘on the spectrum’, is that the joys of the acquisition conquers all. Thus I had owned The Blissful Warrior for a full six weeks earlier than the considered truly 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 truly did so. Wouldn’t it 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 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 major contribution appears to have been as a soccer referee, and a FIFA recognised one for 18 years. So far as I can see The Blissful Warrior is his solely e-book.

I had puzzled 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 an excessive amount of mild on Collie’s upbringing, his spiritual values and his life at residence. 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 alter. I had managed to select up all of Collie’s cricketing achievements from elsewhere, though have been I writing the function as we speak I may 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 Blissful Warrior is that there is no such thing as a point out of the ‘particular relationship’ with Sobers, however then Chaplin had not so far as I can see, apart from 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 observe down a replica of a e-book I’ve been actively on the lookout for for the perfect a part of 20 years. Equally with success in lastly doing so one thing has gone out of my life, so I should discover one thing else to use the identical vitality to discovering – i’m wondering what it is going to be?