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