Dear Editor,

When Sir Vivian Richards was being readied to take over as captain of the West Indies cricket team from Clive Lloyd, there were rumblings about him being neither ready nor worthy.

I sprung to his defence. I wanted my support to be ventilated at the then highest level, and so I sounded out The Cricketer international magazine, edited then by Christopher Martin-Jenkins (CMJ).

In a short turnaround, a red and blue airmail envelope arrived from England, not only accepting my draft, but offering to pay me for using it. The proposal was made by no other than ‘The Major’ himself. The piece, titled ‘Life After Lloyd’, appeared — much to my delight and virtually unedited — in the February 1986 issue of Chris’s magazine. It was my first foray into cricket writing. Four years later, in January 1990, the same thing, albeit with another West Indies cricketer, occurred.

Before we had joined forces at Kingston College, Michael Holding was my adversary, and I, his. My cricket team from Gore Terrace on the east or right side of Constant Spring Road would, in the summer months, go across the divide to play his at the Red Hills Oval.

In matches, I used to feel his pace as he had a penchant for seeking out my unpadded back foot. You see, in those days, my team could only afford one pair of pads — to be shared by both batsmen.

When our paths crossed again at Kingston College, we played Junior Colts, Colts, Second XI and ultimately Sunlight Cup cricket, up to when I left in June 1970.

It was fitting, therefore, that when he retired from international cricket after taking 249 wickets in 60 Tests, I would write a few words on his behalf. Those I again boldly sent to The Cricketer international magazine for their perusal. Voila! There came the same old-fashioned red-and-blue airmail envelope offering me a fee to publish the same. That following month, January 1990, ‘Farewell to Whispering Death’ appeared.

And so one can only imagine how grief-stricken I was when I learnt of The Major’s death on New Year’s Day. This must be a joke, I thought, especially coming so swiftly on the heels of the passing of the other great cricket luminary — Tony Greig. But the calendar read January; not April.

I did not need to read the volumes of glowing tributes that scribes worldwide would pen in Chris’s memory. By him having written 25 books on cricket, I knew how steeped he was. With a frame so wiry, his ability to churn out books showed that a man’s stature isn’t to be measured by the size of his girth, but by the depth of his heart.

In the last few months, I have been struggling through his book, The Spirit of Cricket – A Personal Anthology. Just like his writing, Chris’s commentary also had a regality and a stateliness about it — not unlike the departure of a British Airways 777.

Funnily, the poet Jeff Cloves recently wrote of a similar kindness CMJ extended to him — getting his work into Wisden.

Known in the press box as ‘The Major’ — a name I suspect stuck because of his carriage — Chris and I were on speaking terms from that time in 1986 up until the last time I last saw him at the Fifth England-West Indies Test match at Queen’s Park Oval in March 2009.

But whether it was at Queen’s Park, Sabina Park, Kensington Oval, The Oval, Headingly, Old Trafford, the Gabba, or the SCG, his icebreaker was the same: “Hi Ray, are you still in the States?” he would ask, as his face slowly transformed, drawn back like a curtain into a Cheshire cat-like grin.

Over time, I often wondered why the question was so consistent. Was it just that he was bemused that I wrote from such a distance away from the action? Or was it more? Could it be that he empathised with my voluntary exile from the Caribbean, like so many others? I never asked.

Chris also had a wry sense of humour too. Back in the summer of 2007, when England were engaging the West Indies in the third Test match at Old Trafford, the West Indies batsman Runako Morton scored a 50 in his second innings. The next day in his copy, Chris described the late batsman as having in his stroke play “A touch of Lawrence Rowe”.

“Chris,” I whispered, after having read it, “that’s sacrilege”.

He paused, thought, grinned and said: “Well, I had to get a Jamaican in there somewhere.”

And so I salute Christopher Martin-Jenkins for giving me encouragement, by way of a couple of breaks. I hope modern-day stalwarts in the print medium will not only remember, but emulate his generosity.

Ray Ford

East Lansing,

Michigan, USA

fordraye1@aol.com