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Frank David - a go-getter |
Cricket fanatic Frank challenged his own boundaries
IT’S often the go-getters who migrate to make something of their lives.
When an 81-year-old man told me his life story as we walked from the funeral service on Thursday of a fellow Trinidadian, Frank David, I sensed what drove West Indians to come here in their thousands in the 1950s.
They were all go-getters, it seems.
Frank, who died recently at 77, was such a man.
Like so many West Indians who came here there were only two types of jobs on offer, bus conductor or ticket collector at a Tube station – however high their academic qualifications.
After a short period, Frank, well educated, and a driven man, set up a kind of shipping agency business at his Crouch End home, and soon became known as ‘Mr Fixit’ among compatriots, many of whom wanted to send goods back to their homes. But it was his passion for cricket that made him a household name especially among the Trinidad diaspora in London. Virtually single-handedly he plucked a cricket team from among the talented youngsters, many, but not all, West Indians – and soon Frank’s Cavaliers were swashbuckling their way through the London cricket grounds.
Cricket lovers in Camden, Islington and Hornsey knew them well.
In the 1980s and 1990s he took his team on tour in the West Indies, partly to hone their skills, also to show off his boys. Among his boys were youngsters such as Paul Weekes, Mark Ramprakash and Carl Greenidge, who later made their names as pros.
Recently, the cricketing chiefs in the West Indies, responsible for Commonwealth Games, honoured Frank for his contribution to cricket.
I met him two or three times in recent years at the North Middlesex cricket ground in Crouch End when he organised an annual tournament in memory of another great amateur cricket character Roy Seon.
An airline executive, Glen Cunim, spoke about him as a man of vision in a tribute at the funeral service at St Peter the Chains in Crouch End.
He recalled the 1950s’ magnificent novel, The Lonely Londoners by the Trinidad writer Sam Selvon, as he described Frank’s early years in the capital. Calypsos and ‘soft music’ from composers like Ivor Novello formed Frank’s other love, enough for Mr Cunim to end with “His song has ended but the melody lingers on.” This brought full-throated cheers from one or two in the packed church.
I couldn’t make the reception held a couple of hours later at the North Middlesex
Pavilion, but I gather Frank’s life was celebrated with music, laughter and songs. |
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