In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket, Roger Seymour looks towards the tiny island of Montserrat.
The small island in the Lesser Antilles with its rugged coastline is no Mustique or St Bart’s. This is no white sand-beached, blue waters, tourist destination. This is a rock, brutally sculpted by the thunderous forces of natural disasters; punished by hurricane winds and rains, shaken by earth tremours, buried by volcanic ash, from where an indomitable human spirit flows. Hope and creation spring eternal; from here the sweet sounds of Montserrat emanate.
In November 1493, Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage to the West Indies, gave the isle the name of Montserrat. It would come under British control in 1632. Sugar, rum, arrowroot and sea-island cotton were the main staples of its 17th and 18th centuries’ economy, which was heavily dependent on slave and indentured labour.
Today it is fondly referred to as the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, for the Irish ancestry of many of its inhabitants and the similarity to coastal Ireland. On March 17, 1768, St Patrick’s Day, a slave revolt to gain freedom was unsuccessful.
In 1913, the Leeward Islands Cricket tournament was initiated and the first final was contested on April 18, at the Antigua Recreation Ground, between Antigua and St Kitts. Montserrat and Dominica were the other entrants. The fierce battles for liens on the Hesketh Bell Shield soon became the focal point of life in the Leewards. In October, 1925, the tournament was held at Sturge Park, adjacent to Plymouth, with Montserrat victorious over Antigua in the final.
The Sturge family held a long association with the island. Joseph Sturge VI, a Quaker and a leading figure in the anti-slavery movement, visited the island on December 12, 1836 to examine, first hand, the conditions of the seven-year apprentice scheme, implemented after slavery was abolished on August 1, 1834. Along with three other abolitionists, inspections were also carried out in Barbados, Antigua, Dominica, St Lucia and Jamaica. Upon their return to England they published The West Indies in 1837 and coupled with public campaigning and parliamentary lobbying, the apprenticeship scheme was terminated on August 1, 1838. The former slaves thus gained full freedom three years earlier than scheduled.
In 1857, Sturge purchased Bransby’s sugar estate in Montserrat, intending to demonstrate the viability of sugar using wage-earning labour. Sadly, he died two years later before he could put his venture to the test. His daughter Sophia and his brother Edmund continued his vision. In 1869, Sturge Montserrat Company was incorporated, with the focus on lime cultivation. The company was soon in trouble, and went into voluntary liquidation and was replaced by The Monserrat Company Ltd with Joseph Sturge VII as Managing Director. By 1878 the company’s lime orchards of 120,000 trees covered 600 acres.
The hurricane of 1899 laid waste to the citrus trees but the company vowed to continue. Following on the success of an experimental plot of long-staple, super-fine sea island cotton, in 1903, the crop was expanded and within a few years, became the company’s and the island’s largest source of revenue.
Montserrat has suffered severely at the vicious hands of nature. In the words of Montserrat’s famous griot, Sir Howard Fergus, in History of a Colony, “The next big hurricane crept upon the island around midnight on 28th August, 1924, when most persons were asleep. It spared Plymouth, but took only two hours (1 am – 3 am) to devastate the north and east of the island. There were 36 deaths, scores of serious injuries and 938 homes were destroyed, rendering an estimated 5,000 people homeless.”
In 1928, another hurricane bombarded the island relentlessly for ten hours, destroying crops and homes and any structure in its path. “…The Courthouse, the Grammar School, the Hospital, the Catholic Church, the Wesleyan Church, St Patrick’s Church were all blown away,” Fergus related. “The lime industry was wrecked, over 350 persons were treated for casualties and the death toll was put at around 42 with at least one from every village.”
In the 1930s, a series of earth tremors shook the rock. Like Sisyphus rolling his ball up the hill, only to see it roll down into the abyss, time and time again, Montserrat trundled on. In 1936, in commemoration of Joseph Sturge VI’s visit in 1836, the company presented to the government five acres of land for use in perpetuity as a public open space. During the 1950s, mass migration led to labour shortages, which, coupled with drought and agricultural pests, led to continuing financial losses, thus forcing the board to accept the takeover offer of a Canadian company in 1961.
On October 20, 1956, the distinct drone of twin engines from a Piper Apache airplane was heard over Monserrat. It was the inaugural flight from Antigua of the newly formed Leeward Islands Air Transport (LIAT). Initially based in Montserrat, LIAT was founded by Kittian, the late Frank DeLisle. The necklace chain of the Leeward and Windward islands were now linked by a quick network of flights.
In 1967, Sturge Park hosted its initial first class game, quite appropriately Leewards versus Windwards.
At the annual Leeward Islands Cricket Board meeting in 1970, held in Monserrat, the Antiguan delegate, the late Tim Hector, under instructions from his President Leo Gore, tabled a motion to change the format of the oldest cricket tournament in the Caribbean. The Windwards and the Leewards, since the inception of the Shell Shield in 1966, had played under the banner of the Combined Islands, except in 1967 and 1969 when they played two games each as separate units. (There was no tournament in 1968.) Vincentian Mike Findlay had toured Australia and New Zealand in 1968-69 with the West Indies. In the Second Test at Lord’s in 1969, Findlay and fellow Windwarder, Dominican, Grayson Shillingford made their Test debuts. No Leewarder had ever been selected for a tour. Hector proposed a round-robin competition of four-day matches between Antigua, Monserrat, Nevis and St Kitts, with two teams alternating every year, with two home games and one away. The then format consisted of the four territories convening in one island, with two two-day games, and the winners playing a three-day final. The idea was rejected but a motion was carried to discuss the matter again. At an emergency meeting shortly afterwards, the motion was passed unanimously. The Antiguans had felt that the Leewards cricketers were not getting the proper opportunities to develop into Test cricketers. In 1973, Elquemedo Willett from Nevis was selected against the Australians, followed a year later by the young fast bowler, Andy Roberts from Antigua.
“The Board arrived at the conclusion that, having regard to the programme from 1976 onwards, the time had come for younger players to lead the West Indies team,” excerpt from a press release from the WICBC Annual General Meeting held from May 23 to 25, 1974, in St Lucia. Clive Lloyd had been appointed Captain to replace Rohan Kanhai, for the tour to India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, from November 1974 to March, 1975. The selection committee of Clyde Walcott (Chairman), Joe Solomon and JK Holt and Captain Lloyd, then gathered to select the team. Garry Sobers and Maurice Foster announced their unavailability, whereas Rohan Kanhai expressed an interest.
Lawrence Rowe, Alvin Kallicharran and Lloyd were middle-order fixtures, which left one place open for the taking. Would the selectors retain Kanhai or go with the youth policy? Rumour was rife that a batsman from the Leewards was the leading candidate.
Charles Henry (Jim) Allen was following in the footsteps of a long line of Montserratian cricketers: Sylvester Davies, Frank Edwards, Theodore Bramble, Willie Harris, Nat West, Kingsley Rock. Born into a cricketing family in the rural village of Harris, which had the only recognized cricket pitch, Hyde Park, outside of Plymouth. Jim, a right hander, batting with an unorthodox two-eyed, open-chest, wide-legged stance (a la George Headley), had made his debut in the Hesketh Bell Shield, as a wicketkeeper, lower-order batsman, in 1969 against Antigua. The 18-year-old had made a name for himself by plundering bowling attacks in local club cricket. The sharp, distinct sound of willow on leather, would become a trademark of a Jim Allen innings.
In the 1971 Leewards Islands tournament, he had scores 148, 52, 44 not out, 52 and 4. On January 15, 1972, he made his first-class debut versus the Windward Islands, in the annual pre-Shell Shield game, at Windsor Park, Roseau, Dominica. Jim’s 82 in the 2nd innings, sparked a Leewards victory by 4 wickets as they chased a target of 232. Twenty-two-year-old Vivian Richards from Antigua, also making his first-class debut had scores of 20 and 26.
In 1974, Jim scored 102 for the Combined Islands as they beat The MCC by 5 runs in a 50-over game in the tour opener. In the Shell Shield, Jim (91) and Viv (78) enjoyed a third-wicket partner
ship of 147 in the second innings versus Guyana, only for the Islands to collapse and lose by 46 runs.
When the team was announced, the middle-order batsman chosen from the Leewards was Viv Richards and not Jim Allen. There was nothing to choose between their statistics:
Jim Allen – 15 matches, 29 innings, 821 runs, 30.40 average, Highest score, 104
Viv Richards – 19 matches, 35 innings, 920 runs, 27.87 average, Highest score, 82
Whatever the selectors saw in Viv at the time, only they can tell. The rest is history. Viv scored 192 in his second Test and commanded a place in the West Indies side for the next 17 years.
In 1975, Allen had scores of 110 versus Barbados at Kensington Oval, 46 against Jamaica and 96 in the famous Tante Merle match, as the Islands just missed out on winning the Shell Shield. Like Sisyphus, the man from Harris Village stuck to the task. In 1977, he hammered 150 off Guyana at Sturge Park and another century in Barbados, compiling 559 runs at an average of 50.81; and then came the Packer crisis. When Kallicharran’s contract was found to be invalid (he was legally bound to Queensland), Jim Allen was selected as his replacement. For two months Packer representatives had searched the West Indies and England for the 26-year-old bulldozer driver from the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
WSC Captain Lloyd predicted before the first season, that Jim Allen was going to be the star of the show. It was not to be. In three Super Tests over two seasons, he had very meagre results. The highlight of his WSC career was 101 for WSC Cavaliers against WSC Rest of the World XI, in Tasmania, in the second season.
In 1977, Frank Edwards, his mentor and manager, assisted Allen to become the first Montserratian to play in the Lancashire League, when he secured a contract with Hyde. He won the Manchester Evening News Hemeling Lite Lager batting award whilst developing a reputation as a ‘run machine’. In 1980, he outscored everyone, including Rohan Kanhai, with 1,142 runs for Werneth including 7 centuries, with several whirlwind innings. DCN Jones was moved to write, “Allen is arguably the finest machine ever to have appeared in the Lancashire and Cheshire League, became something of a cricketing wonder and his name is indelibly written in their records.” Bear in mind, Sobers had passed this way before.
In 1977, George Martin, the producer of the Beatles visited Montserrat and was immediately smitten by its lush vegetation and rugged mountains. In 1979, he opened AIR Studios, a state-of-the-art recording facility, perched on a mountain top, in the ultimate getaway location. One of the first albums recorded was, Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Volcano,’ whose title track was inspired by his alarm at the studio’s proximity to the dormant volcano. Over the next decade, the Who’s Who of rock enjoyed classic recording sessions at AIR. The roll call included Dire Straits, The Police, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Duran Duran, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton, Super Tramp and Little River Band. Many of the big hits of the 80s were recorded at AIR Studios.
In December 1978, Jim received a letter from WICBC Secretary Harold Burnett inquiring about his availability for the 1979 tour to Pakistan. Once again, the call from the WICBC never came. In 1979, he made his highest first-class score of 161 against Jamaica at St George’s, Grenada as the Combined Islands, trailing on first innings by 102 runs, won by 14 runs. Allen was a member of the 1981 side that won the Shell Shield for the first time, getting 81 against Jamaica in the innings’ victory.
In 1981, Jim sustained an eye injury at a net session, and had to receive surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Contributions towards the operation, included collections in Antigua during a Test Match – $4,930 and $5,600 from West Indies players. Forced to wear contacts, Jim was never the same again. His last game was against the Windwards in the 1983 Shell Shield (the Islands were split in 1982 ) from March 3 – 6, at Warner Park, St Kitts. He made 14 and 7, as the Leewards lost by 1 run. Allen had dominated Leewards cricket like no other, making 1,610 runs at an average of 60.12, including 4 centuries, with a top score of 165 against Nevis at Sturge Park. His first class aggregate of 3,067 runs, included 5 centuries at an average of 34.07. It was a premature end to a career that had promised so much.
When asked about Jim Allen, Joel Garner looked me square in the eye, and without hesitation replied, “FEARLESS! No one could intimidate Jim Allen.”
Creole poet Ann Marie Dewar has immortalized him in her poem:
A We Jim
What a carry-on at Sturge Park!
How de crowd a stamp an roar!
Fo Combine play Guyana
An a-we Jim tap de score.
Lek waata fram a bus’ pipe
Lek bullet fram a gun
Lek how lang-foot Sue mek baby
Is so Jim put on run!
When Jim a bat ee no mek joke
Cricket ball a fly all over
To slip, mid-on boundary, square leg,
Fine leg an’ extra cover
If Jim didn’t pick pan Combine
Is how Combine woulda cope?
When Guyana man canfront dem
Is pan Jim deh heng dem hope
Maas James tell ee darta husban’
Fo mark ee wuds; ee say
Dat West Indies woulda beat Australia
If Jim mi ever dey.
In 1983, Alphonsus Cassell, a calypsonian from Montserrat, known as the Mighty Arrow, set the world on fire with his mega soca hit “Hot, Hot, Hot,” a song that became the theme for the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Arrow, the inventor, dabbled in fusing other genre into soca, mixing zouk, R&B, salsa, Latin brass, merengue and rock beats whilst revolutionising the sound. Arrow, the businessman, had his own label. He recorded over 20 albums and was also responsible for hits such as “Tiney Winey” and “Long Time.”
On Sunday, September 22, 1989, at 7.25 am, nature came howling again in the form of Hurricane Hugo. The storm raged for 14 hours, as the eye of the hurricane passed directly over the island. It was the most devastating hurricane for over 100 years. Ten people were killed and numerous injured. Ninety per cent of the buildings were extensively damaged and all the trees had been decapitated by winds of an average speed of 145 mph and gusts over 180 mph. The island was devoid of electricity and running water. Almost the entire population was homeless. The estimated damage of £160,000,000, made it the most expensive disaster in the history of Montserrat.
The resilient people of Montserrat began the task of rebuilding again.
Between 1992 and 1994, earthquake swarms were first detected. On July 18, 1995, Montserrat’s Soufriere Hills volcano, dormant for centuries, began spewing large, billowing clouds of ash and steam. In April, 1996, the south of the island was evacuated. Plymouth was abandoned. In June, 1997, the most devastating flow, down the north-east slopes of the volcano, killed 19 people who had returned to their homes in the danger zone. Eruption clouds 9000m high were detected. In August 1997, pyroclastic flows destroyed Plymouth, 3 miles from the crater. In July, 1999, a large eruption, with clouds of 35,000 feet, caused the dome to collapse. The volcano is a stratovolcano, composed mainly of consolidated ash layers from previous eruptions. Initially, pyroclastic flows went eastwards from the open crater down the Tar River valley, but as the dome grew, eventually, flows were able to come down any side of the volcano.
Plymouth laid buried in 12 metres of volcanic ash, like a modern Pompeii. The seat of government and most services, including hospitals and schools were gone forever. More than half the population accepted the offer to move to the UK, since Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory. The southern half of the island is now known as the exclusion zone, determined to be under the direct threat of the volcano.
Arrow lost everything but refused to leave the island and relocated to St John’s. He organised a fundraising calypso festival in Montserrat in 1996 to help in the aftermath of the volcano. He died peacefully at his home, at Lime Kiln Bay, on September 15, 2010.
George Martin of AIR Studios, who passed away on March 8, this year, had been raising funds to help the victims and families on the island. A star-studded concert on September 15, 1997 in London, featured many of the artists who had recorded in Montserrat. Martin’s close friend Arrow performed. All the proceeds went towards short-term relief for the islanders. Martin raised US$1.4 million for the building of a new cultural and community centre, by releasing 500 limited edition lithographs of his score for the Beatles hit “Yesterday,” signed by him and Paul McCartney.
In 2001, in commemoration of his 50th birthday, the government of Montserrat started a lecture series on cricket in the name of Jim Allen. The first guest speaker
was Tony Cozier, the renowned cricket commentator, who saw a lot of Jim, during World Series Cricket. Here are his words, describing Jim Allen replacing the injured Lawrence Rowe, in a night match in Australia: “I happened to be doing the commentary at the time and when Jim appeared, they’d never seen him on television before. No one knew where he came from, who he was and it was left to me, therefore, to explain where he came from, who he was. And I explained, trying to set the scene, telling people in Australia, that he comes from an island called Montserrat. The light bulbs which were illuminating the ground at VFL Park that night were carrying more kilowatts, than would light up the whole of Montserrat. In a ground that would hold 75,000, Montserrat’s population would fit in there several times over. As Jim walked out, he had never played a night match in his life before. His eyes were blinking. And I built it up. I said he’s nervous, his eyes are blinking, he has never faced a ball, a white ball under lights, Gary Gilmour was bowling and he hit the very first ball he faced, back overhead for six. That was Jim Allen.”
The third speaker in the series, was the late Tim Hector, from Antigua, who considered Jim, the most exciting batsman in Leewards cricket, including Viv. Here he is, describing his 162 not out vs Antigua, in 1972, at the Antigua Recreation Ground: “Montserrat was going down again to Antigua, as usual. Jim Allen determined that it would not happen, until all other batsmen had departed, leaving him alone to bat at both ends. Andy Roberts, then young, pinned him down with express pace on an off-stump line. To the length ball, Jim Allen played forward, Andy varied his length to the ¾ length ball, to which, Jim also played forward. Then he started playing this same ball on the front foot, with short-arm jabs, without too much back-lift between mid-wicket and mid-on for couples. Each was a masterpiece of timing and placement, with the margin of error reduced to nil. Meanwhile, Jim Allen had been ducking Andy Roberts’ bouncers for the whole of his innings. Inwardly perturbed by these short arm, wrist uncoiling jabs, Andy outwardly calm delivered a bouncer, which Jim, on the front foot hooked out of the ground.”
First Test, New Zealand versus West Indies at Dunedin, December 11, 2008, Lionel Baker becomes the first Montserratian to play Test Cricket.
Life goes on in Montserrat, a new capital is being built in Little Bay. A few days ago, on March 17, Montserrat celebrated St Patrick’s Day, whilst commemorating the slave revolt of almost 250 years ago.
Jim Allen is still there, not out, probably humming Arrow’s “Ah Just Can’t Run Away.”
“As long as I can leave me door wide open (referring to the island’s famed lack of crime)
as long as dere’s breadfruit and mango down dere
I’ll be holding on.
Only de Lord Almighty control our destiny,
Whatever is to be will be
I’ll never forsake my country.
Arrow ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
