Dear Editor,
The Guyana High Commission in London was the setting for a very full house for the launch of Professor Clem Seecharan and Ian McDonald’s book on Joe Solomon and the Spirit of Port Mourant. Fifty plus came and ate the house out of food and drank it out of the El Dorado donated by DDL. They bought plenty books. Seecharan spoke with passion about the environment of the Port Mourant estate which begat West Indian test cricket players and political leaders such as Cheddi Jagan. Dr. Ian McDonald and ‘Reds’ Pereira contributed tributes on tape from their homes in Canada and St Lucia.
The undoubted star of the evening was the legendary West Indies captain Sir Clive Lloyd. He remembered looking up to Solomon when he first joined the team. Mostly, he was in some despair on the current state of the West Indies team-overpaid stars (thanks to the IPL and CPL inter alia) their love for the ‘exhibition’ of T20 as opposed to ‘examination’ of Test cricket, their indiscipline and reluctance to practice-hard-in the nets (most recently observed when he was parachuted in to ‘save’ the Amazon Warriors), the need for a bigger subvention from the ICC to the WI and the recovery of pride in playing for ‘their’ country.
Sir Clive also recalled the glory days of his team and how he used his brain to develop the psychology of the team and looking after their material comforts. Some personal recollections from him too of having to become the breadwinner for his entire family putting them all through college and more. All in all a magical evening at the High Commission. The UK diaspora at its finest. A good start to the new regimen. A recording will be available on YouTube next week.
Sincerely,
John ‘Bill Cotton/Reform’ Mair
