Like most other Barbadians, I received the news of the passing of Rt. Excellent Sir Garfield Sobers with deep sorrow and have continued to feel his loss keenly.
My late friend, Garnet Winfield Ashby, his wife, Winifred, and other members of his household would not forgive me if I allowed this moment to pass without any comment. For it was at Garnet’s house that I was regaled over and over again with the story of his taking young Garfield, at age thirteen, from his mother, Thelma and bringing him to St Philip every weekend to play cricket for Garnet’s team, Kent. Garnet lived at Pennyhole, (now Gemswick) St Philip at the time.
From those early years, therefore, I became a Garry Sobers fan virtually by conscription. By May, 1965, however, when at the age of fourteen as a secondary schoolboy, I went to Kensington Oval to watch the Test Match, West Indies versus Australia, I became a Garry Sobers fan, aided this time by personal experience and observation. Words have mocked my attempts ever since then to capture the mix of emotions which possessed me when I saw him emerge from the pavilion, descend those steps and walk out to bat. All were hushed and had their gaze fixed upon him. His impact on me, on the many subsequent occasions I have seen him perform that ritual, lost none of the freshness which I experienced at age fourteen.
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin defined greatness as the ability to transform paradox into platitude. By that definition has Sir Garry fully qualified himself. For he took all of the paradoxes of cricket in batting, in bowling and in fielding and transformed them into platitudes, into routines, as if they were just a part of the natural order of things. That is perhaps what inspired cricket writer and enthusiast C.L.R James to say the following about Sir Garry:
“There are players (not many) of a style and personal history of whom it can be said that both physically and spiritually they would achieve mastery over any problem set them. There are a few people like that and Sobers is definitely one of the breed.”
The greatness of Sir Garry has rested on and is derived from the resources of a strong personal character. Men of character have an almost carnal relationship with difficulty and with challenge, for it is in overcoming difficulties and meeting challenges that they prove and reinforce themselves. So was it with Sir Garry.
In June 1966, in the Second Test Match against England at Lords, with the entire top order of the West Indies team back in the pavilion, the score being a depressing 95 for 5 and with defeat staring the West Indies in the face, Sir Garry walked out in that manner so beautifully captured by the commentator, John Arlott:
“Everything he did was marked by a natural grace, apparent at first sight. As he walked out to bat six feet tall, lithe but with adequately wide shoulders, he moved with long strides which, even when he was hurrying, had an air of laziness, the hip joints rippling like those of a great cat.”
Sir Garry confronted what seemed a daunting challenge with marble-like composure and calm. When the West Indies declared at 369 for 5, he was 163 not out and had brought along young David Holford who scored 105 not out. Against all expectations, the match was saved.
In February 1968, again against England at Sabina Park in Jamaica, Sir Garry faced another challenge. Here is how former Australian all-rounder Keith Miller described that challenge:
” That Sabina Park pitch had giant-sized cracks, or should I say crevices, strewn cobweb-like throughout its 22-yard length as though some minor earth tremor had shaken Kingston. At this stage of the match, I examined the pitch and could insert all fingers of one hand finger-length into these huge cracks. It was a batsman’s nightmare, especially for Sobers as he had been dismissed first ball in the first innings….. but Sobers, grandly aided by Seymour Nurse, somehow dismissed the torment of the pitch and played strokes as though it was a plumb easy batting pitch. Frankly, this 113 was the best innings in such atrocious conditions I have ever seen.” Again, the match was saved.
It says much about the greatness and strength of character of Sir Garry Sobers that generations of young men in the Caribbean tried to walk like Sir Garry, dress like Sir Garry and get their hair cut like Sir Garry. Young right handers, in their villages and communities, tried to bat and bowl as left handers just to simulate the style of Sir Garry.
Of his charm of manner, of his humility and of his humanity much has already been said and written. We, all of us, in a manner of speaking, became members of his household.
It brought me great pleasure as I delivered the eulogy at Garnet’s funeral on August 6, 2003 at the Zion Tabernacle Church at Marchfield Village Road, St. Philip, to see Sir Garry there seated up front. He had not forgotten Garnet’s contribution to his formation. It was never in his nature to forget his own journey or the inspiration and support he was able to secure from well-wishers along the way.
His first wicket in test cricket was that of Trevor Bailey, the England all-rounder, later to become a cricket writer and broadcaster. He wrote a biography of Sobers which was published in 1976. I have undimmed recollections of the emotion by which Garnet was overcome when Trevor Bailey, in preparation for that biography, came to see and interview him at his Marchfield Village Road home.
Sir Garry had many richly deserved honours bestowed on him during an illustrious life: Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC), Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of the West Indies, status of National Hero from the Government of Barbados and a Knighthood from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. When Her Majesty conferred the knighthood on Sir Garry in 1975, for the first time in her gracious reign, she was playing catch up. Ten years earlier the people of the Caribbean had, quietly and without fanfare, knighted Sir Garry and assigned to the Mighty Sparrow the task of letting the world know. Sparrow obliged with a touch of artistic panache: “Who is the greatest cricketer on earth or mars? Anyone can tell you it’s the great SIR Garfield Sobers.”
Our beloved and esteemed National Hero and national treasure is now gone. His life enriched us for as long as it lasted; his death has now left desolate that portion of our landscape which he so proudly, so uniquely and so gracefully occupied.
” O for the touch of a vanished hand And the sound of a voice that is still!”
As we bid farewell to our fallen hero, in the name of my late friends Garnet and Winnie and thousands of others who cannot now speak for themselves, I address Sir Garry in the immortal words of Cornelius Tacitus:
” If there is a place for the spirits of the good, if, as men of wisdom think, great souls do not perish with the body, may yours be a peaceful rest. Call us, members of your household, away from weak regret and maudlin lamentation to a study of your virtues, in respect of which to weep and to wail is wrong.
Let us honour you not so much with transitory praises as with our reverence, and if character permits us, with our emulation. That would be true respect, that the true affection of your nearest kin.
What we have loved, what we have admired [in Sir Garry] endures and will endure in the souls of men, in the eternity of the ages and in that renown that is ever the reward of noble deeds.”
To Sir Garry’s children Matthew, Daniel and Genevieve, to his grandchildren and other relatives, and to the millions of others gladdened by his life but now saddened by his death, I extend on behalf of my own family and my self, heartfelt condolences.
May Rt. Excellent Sir Garfield St Auburn Sobers Rest in Peace.
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