Weekes bats for Worrell

The packed Central Bank Auditorium in Port-of-Spain came out to witness Weekes receive the Noble Spirit Award from the Sir Frank Worrell Memorial Committee for his contribution to West Indies cricket, and to hear globally acclaimed Trinidad-born broadcaster, Sir Trevor Mc Donald deliver the feature address on the occasion. The committee which was formed to assist West Indies cricket was also celebrating its 10th anniversary.

The event commemorated the 50th anniversary observances of Sir Frank’s death, and the late West Indies captain’s greatness was trumpeted by all speakers. But it was Weekes who brought the house down with some fine strokes in his impromptu address.

At age 92, Sir Everton made it to the auditorium stage with scarcely any assistance and spoke from memory without any notes.

“Frank is not in heaven,” Weekes said referring to the late Sir Frank, leaving his audience a little confused initially, but clearing up the matter quickly.

“If he were there, I would have heard from him by now. He would have called me to join him because we did everything together.

I speak to him every day because we spent most of our time together when he was alive together. There are pictures of myself and Sir Frank everywhere in my house.

But I thought I would have heard from him by now.” Sir Frank, who became the first black captain of the West Indies in the 1950s, died of leukaemia on March 13, 1967 at age 42. Sir Frank, along with Sir Clyde Walcott and Sir Everton Weekes, were popularly known as The Three Ws.

Sir Everton in his address said Sir Frank should be remembered for what he did for cricket.

“So many nice things were said this evening about Frank, and we should all be cheerful at what he has done for the game and for the Caribbean,” he said.

Sir Trevor took a more serious note about the legendary late West Indies cricket captain. He hailed the late Barbadian cricketer as one of two iconic figures that left a memorable impact on his life. The other was Nelson Mandela whose release and aspects of his life Sir Trevor covered as a UK-based television journalist.

Sir Trevor said Sir Frank never had any hard feelings about why it took so long for the West Indies to appoint a black captain.

Sir Trevor told the Central Bank audience, “I talked to Frank about it many times, he shrugged and smiled and then laughed loudly. Frank was incapable of bitterness and of harbouring any grudges, he was much too big a man for that.” Sir Trevor said, “Frank was above all a leader. He believed in that nurturing quality of leadership. He also believed very, very strongly in West Indian unity and in the cores of West Indian unity. He saw the cricket team as a core part of that.” Sir Trevor said being invited back home to Trinidad by the Sir Frank Worrell Memorial Committee was an honour. “After tonight I would boast to everybody I meet, that one day last year I got a telephone call from Port-of-Spain asking me to come to Trinidad to deliver the Sir Frank Worrell Memorial lecture and it’s a boast about which in all my years I am most proud.

Thank you so much for inviting me here this evening.” Sir Trevor also recalled a conversation with Mandela that demonstrated the late South African president’s humility. “I remember once at a dinner in London asking Mandela something about the South African economy,” Sir Trevor said. “He was president of South Africa.

He said to me I don’t understand very much about economics.

He had such humility.” “I was really enthralled to watch the change in South Africa.

I went there during the years of apartheid and I saw the condition of the lives of black South Africans.

I must also confess I still think I was enormously privileged to have known a man like Mandela.” Sir Trevor, who attended Naparima College, joined the BBC in 1969 and became one of United Kingdom’s leading news anchors working with the BBC and ITN.

Sir Trevor, interviewed by Newsday’s Editor-in-Chief Jones P Madeira, and taking questions from the packed auditorium, reflected on his journey in the media. He had earlier in the day gone to his alma mater in San Fernando to visit with students there.

Videos of Sir Frank, Sir Everton and Sir Clyde in their playing days were also among highlights of the evening.