Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service where we report the world, however difficult the issue, however hard to reach. recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation they said yes And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, What the f*ck are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a*s*it? So to recap, we're cutting the price of and unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. Accident fees. Promote rate for new customers for a limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month. Slows. Full terms at mintmobile.com. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about... Everything going up during inflation. We thought we'd bring our prices down so to help us we brought

Reverse auctioneer which is apparently a thing. Mint mobile unlimited premium wireless how did he get 30 30 30 30 20 20 20 20 20 15 15 15 15 just 15 bucks a month so give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch $45 up front for $3. Plus taxes and fees. Promo rate for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40GB per month. Slows. Full terms at MintMobile.com. We want war on this side. Wow, the crowd. Unreal. I don't know how many. That could be easily 10,000 plus people on the field. I'm with the former England cricketer, Eppony Rainford Brent, and we're on the pavilion. Balcony at the Oval Ground in London watching footage from here in 1963 Frank Worrell's last international match In England.

The whole of the world at this point to get that sort of reception. Worrall was 39 in 1963, a great captain of a great... West Indies side waving farewell to a crowd of English and West Indian fans from the balcony just below us. Within a year he would be awarded a knighthood by the Queen. By the age of 42, Frank Worrall would be dead. Well what a tremendous scene here, where the West Indies have won the match and I'm sure everybody would like to congratulate Frank Worrall and his men for having given us the most wonderful series we've had in this country. This is the documentary from the BBC World.

World Service and I'm Simon Lister, a journalist and author who writes about West Indian cricket history and this is the story of Frank Worrell, whose life intersected with a changing Caribbean world which saw him become the first full-time black captain of the West Indies team. And a quick warning, you will hear some outdated and discriminatory Language. He represented a change in time. Voices from Barbados, Trinidad and London from people who are going to give us an insight into Frank Warrell's life.

Last voiced there was Ebony Rainford Brents and we'll hear from her again later because the first black woman to play cricket for England and the World Cup winner in 2009 discovered that she had a unique connection to Frank Worrall that changed her life. This is Needham's Point, right on the south-western tip of Barbados. I'm at a 17th century British fort, the Charles Fort. And there's four rather knobbly old cannon in front of me pointing out to sea. And they were here to keep out the French and the Dutch. The Spanish because Barbados belonged to the British and if you look across the About a mile or so away you can see the four lighting towers of the Kensington Oval, the most famous cricket ground on the island where all the international games are played and there's a connection because for almost as long as the British were here, there was cricket here.

But when Frank Warrell was learning the game in the 1930s, he wouldn't have been allowed to play on the Kensington Oval because he was the wrong class and he was the wrong color. By 1929 the world had entered that mobile. It's pressure and I think the western islands themselves were facing you know hardships. And journalist Vanessa Bach is a biographer of Warhol. Social conditions of Barbados, which was actually really a plantation economy, and you had all these distinctions within that economy. Most of them were based on racial realms. You had the hierarchy where the planters, the merchants were the white elite, and you had layers within the Barbados society that they had.

Would have made someone like Frank really low down on the social ladder. was born into a poor family in 1924. He had a older brother and a younger sister. His father worked on board merchant ships and his mother was a seamstress. Their place in the world was the legacy of 200 years of sugar plantation slavery. Really, nothing in Barbados escaped it and cricket was no different. Membership at the Kensington Oval was for white people only. Frank would have to learn his cricket elsewhere. Here he is speaking to the BBC in 1963. My home was just a matter of 10 yards away from one of our first division clubs. So there I saw and played cricket day in and day out. From about the age of six I can recollect. Rolling the arm up.

I'm on Pavilion Road in the Bank Hall district of Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados, and I've come here to see the site of Frank Warrell's house, where he lived with his grandmother because his parents had left Barbados by 19... To find work in the USA and that wasn't an unusual situation in those days. It's a small house. Probably only four meters across and it's got a little veranda out the front and they say that Franken is Friends used to sit up on the roof here to get a better view of the men playing cricket at the Empire Club and it was right here that cricket first got into Frank Worrall's blood. Good morning. Hi Simon, nice to meet you. How are you? I'm well. You're watering the wicket here? Yeah. How's it going? Very good. I'll see you yesterday if you have a game on it. If you soak the wicket like this...

In England you wouldn't play for three weeks. No offense. That's right, yeah. No offense. You've got to wait a bit, have you? David, who showed me round Empire, and Tweety Bird, the groundsman, played here for years. In Warrels' day, Empire was specifically for lower class black players, a club born Of rejection because a founder member was judged to be too lowly for the nearby aspirational black club. So the men here set up their own team and played with a certain defiance. This was how Frank Warrell learned the game. - So Simon, you will notice that the color is brown. It's not green like in England.

Yeah, some straw colour, doesn't it? Straw colour. Yeah. Biscuit colour. It will be-- Biscuit. Yeah, that's good. This dark part is because of the water. Uh-huh. When it-- So Empire didn't just teach Worrell cricket. It gave him values for life. Can we go and have a look at that other wicket? Yes, Thorcross. Yeah. Be careful walking on it, though. Yeah. It was quite a treat to stand at the crease. Where Frank Warrell took guard 80 years ago. He'd scored hundreds of runs here and while he was still at school he played first class cricket for Barbados. It was soon obvious He was an astonishing athlete. By the end of the 1940s, he was an international... Player. with the easy flying style crowds love to see, completes a classic 50 and helps to put

On 95 in 65 minutes. A very elegant player, comfortable looking at the crease. I've never seen Frank look florida or anything. Beautiful stroke player, always immaculate. Someone who drew the crowd to them. That's Jackie. Hendrix speaking from Jamaica. Hendrix played truant as a schoolboy to watch Worrell Batt and was later captained by him in the West Indies side. And it's most uncricket like weather that welcomes the West Indies touring team to the Mecca of the Batten Ball Brigade. In 1950, at the beginning of a decade which would see the empire unravel and British prestige diminish, the West Indies brought a full cricket team to England for the fourth time. The captain, as usual, was white, but its stars were black.

Weeks, Walcott and Worrall, the famous three W's... Were all from Barbados, born within 16 months and a couple of miles of each other, and were all world-class cricketers. After this winning tour, the West Indies' first in India. England, they were national heroes. But when they went home to Barbados, because of their status, they couldn't even vote.

The idea of anyone other than someone from the elite becoming the captain of a West Indian team was just unthinkable. Here's the biographer, Vanessa Batch. It was only as the 50s came and that famous tour to England, they felt that John Goddard ought to have given credit to the support he had from the team. And he did not. And so within the players, they were looking at, well, who were the ones who were actually guiding him? And I think that was one of the key moments because it actually made the players to you that it doesn't have to be a white captive. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. Hi, Cummy, hello. Hello, hello, hello, hello.

Hello, hello, hello. Nice to see you, how are you? Thanks very much for having me. This is Cammie Smith, he's now 100 and the oldest living West Indies test player. He was waiting for me at the front gate of his house east of Bridgetown and was a generous host. It was only a Tuesday morning, but a couple of large glasses of rum were ready for us on his veranda table. Cammie was a teammate of Frank Warrell. He himself was... Outstanding player we all know that but he never spoke so much about himself as what he could do What he couldn't do. Hi, I'm Daniel, founder of PrettyLitter. Did you know cats tend to hide symptoms of sickness and pain? I learned this the hard way after losing my cat, Gingy. So I created PrettyLitter, a health monitoring litter that helps detect early signs of illness by changing colors, saving you money, and potentially your cat's life. PrettyLitter is veterinary and developed, and it's the easiest way to keep--

tabs on your fur babies health right at home. - Go to prettylitter.com and use code ACAST for 20% off your first order and a free cat toy. Terms and conditions apply, C-site for details. - Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Min Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what big wireless. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price. Of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. - $45 upfront for three months plus. Promote rate for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month. Slows. Full terms at mintmobile.com. Than anything else to help you do what you want to do. Do you think he should have been captain of the West Indies before? He was. Oh that goes without saying. Well it does.

Days you know colored fellows very very very seldom had the opportunity but Frank was so outstanding that when the time came They couldn't deny him the opportunity. When you really think about it, it's impossible. But it happened. Frank was such a genuine individual, such an important man, and could handle people in a calm, cool manner. He couldn't be beaten. And yet these obvious... Ifs that Frank Worrell possessed, strategic acuity, emotional intelligence, were willfully ignored for much longer. Of the 1950s by the controllers of Caribbean cricket. Lived in a world where white people led and black people followed. Their sentiments were

meshed in the old ways. These fellows get captained because of the colour. And Frank was subjective and put aside because of his colour, not because of his ability. And it hadn't throughout Barbados and the West Indies. This is Sir Charlie Griffith, the famous fast bowler of Worrell's era. He still sounds exasperated today. The people of the But in front of Frank as captain, he couldn't even bring water or something to clean his boots because they don't know anything very quickly that's concerned. They were not as knowledgeable as Frank. You know, I wouldn't bother calling them, they're called the dead now. Because we had captains that couldn't even... they didn't make no contributions to the team. But because of the time, Frank was put on the side because of that. What Charlie Griffiths.

Described to me as the thing was racial discrimination, what used to be known in the Caribbean as the color bar. In public, Frank Worrall never showed his exasperation. He wasn't a radical, he was almost always a diplomat, including when it came to talking about... Out race. The only openings for the colored boys were in the civil service or teaching and then five Six years after that, then you find the traps getting farther and farther apart. Basically, I don't think there's any suggestion of hatred of the races. It just meant that you found yourself in a different clique. The clique assigned to Frank Warrell was in... For those from whom little was expected in life. His frustration with the petty impositions of conservative Barbados in the 1940s and 50s caused him to lead

the island for good. It would be his extraordinary skill as a cricketer, playing around the world, that set him free. Margaret as her Royal Highness slowly drove to the Red House to inaugurate the first federal legislature of the West Indies. When the French came to the region, nationalist movements were winning constitutional independence from the British government. A political federation was created in the British West Indies. Resplendent in a gown of white satin studded with ruby and sapphire stones, Princess Margaret read a message from the Queen to the new Federation. It was a time of great social optimism, even though the federation would turn out to be short lived. Gone in five years. Termination many West Indians prized above all, the one symbol of unity they yearned for was a cricket team captained by one of their own.

Here's Vanessa Batch. - That notion entered the public imagination. The idea that this was a strong representative team, and it was a team that seemed to establish a sense of Western Indian identity. What Worrell did was he put into a public space

Is the notion of parity. - Yet by this time, Worrell had more or less turned his back on West Indian cricket. Exhausted by the double talk of those who controlled the Caribbean game, he had concentrated instead on being a highly paid professional in the English leagues and studying for a degree at the University of Manchester. But by 1960, he could no longer escape the momentum that had been generated in wider Caribbean society. And, aged 35, he accepted the invitation to become the first full-time black captain of the West Indies. Not only was it a great moment for the region's cricket, it was a significant moment for the region...

Itself because Worrell's own success represented the hopes of a whole people. I'll tell you this, one of the qualities that not only myself but nearly everybody in the team appreciated was that at dinner Frank would come and sit down with one player and just chat with him. Not about cricket. What about life in general? You know, what he intended to do when he finished playing cricket. And he would speak to you as though he wanted to bring you out as a proper person. Something that I don't think any other captain would do.

Used to do, up to this day. I've never heard of anybody speaking like that. That's Cammie Smith talking about the extent of Worrell's captaincy. And here's the view of Sir Charlie Griffith. He enlightened you, he educated you. He was a motivator. and he was To ask like a father figure. And you could go to him with any problem. He was willing to sit down and talk to you and ask you. Some of the others. The team had the greatest respect for him as a captain. And we all played together. One of the reasons why Frank Warrell could do this so successfully, says Vanessa Batch, is that he appreciated many aspects of the West Indian personality.

Kind of emotional intelligence that had really been lacking before. You have to remember that the Western teams are different in the sense that they are constituted from people from different islands, different nations in a sense, different laws, different entities. And so to bring them together, you have to be able to manage. What may seem to people on the outside to be small cultural differences, but they were not. They were not. They were acute things. What came next was a liberation. A team of talented but unfocused players now had a captain they could respect. Worrall treated them like men, not subordinates, and they loved him for it, playing some of their best.

Cricket with Frank Warrell as their skipper. There was the thrilling series in Australia in 1960-61, then India were beaten 5-0 in 1962 and in 1963 after beating England in London in the final test, Warrell came. His very public goodbye. International cricket and there were these amazing scenes there's there's Worrall there just below us pretty much right where we are Yeah, it's extraordinary. Wow, look at that. I actually just got hairs on the back of my neck looking at these pictures. I think it's the... Well, the smiles first of all, but also there's a sense of freedom. You can see pride and freedom in the people that are running by the pavilion.

Or maybe first generation immigrants coming over but that's just... This is the former England all rounder, Ebony Rainford Brent again. What an incredible picture. Obviously this would have been around the age my mum would have started coming to the UK from Jamaica and you know she... Told me stories of the challenges of integration and what that would have meant, but the amount of pride that there would have been when countries were starting to get their independence. And so I suppose the West Indies coming over to the UK and playing England in that sort of historic moment, it would have So much to so many different people. When she was growing up in London, Ebonie Rainford-Brent hadn't been told a lot about the great things that had happened on this ground. I wasn't aware of the history of West Indies cricket. British born girl. I didn't grow up seeing it. Everyone loved football. As I started coming through the game and thinking, gosh, where are all the black cricketers and wondering why there was this big gap. And then when I started to coach...

And understand the game I realised there was this hole and we needed a direct program that gets into the heart of communities and links everything up from school into the counties and then be able to throw it at the community. The programme Ebony set up was the ACE programme, which takes cricket to 24,000 school children in six British cities. Thousands of kids learning the thrill of smashing a cricket ball for the first time. time. And our sport to reflect the communities that we serve. To do that, you want our young people to be able to turn on the team. And see somebody that looks like them came from where they came from and they're inspired. And your journey into cricket was very difficult. From the one you're trying to map out for young people today. Can you tell us a little bit about one person in particular...

Who really changed the way you engaged with cricket. I was spotted by an amazing lady who changed my whole life called Jenny Washtrack. She got in touch with my mum because mum... Struggling, you know, mum was a single parent. She basically from about the age of 12 to 18 did everything, like became a second parent to me. Got me scholarships drove me up and down the country drove me to trials put up with me when I was being a Moni teenager I would not be stood here As an international athlete who's won World Cups if it wasn't for this incredible woman who really in me and my mum, so I owe her my whole career really. And there's a special connection between you and Frank Worrall and Jenny's in the middle of it.

I did not know about this connection through her family to the Waugh family, but then it kind of hit me like, Hold on, I'm the first black woman to play cricket for England. And there's a family member of his who has pretty much walked me through this game, and he's like one of the... First full-time black captain for the West Indies in an era where we're talking about the history of the Empire, independence, like this whole kind of real strong rich history for British history and West Indian history and the merging of it and a person who represented that for my career. And to think that she did that for me it felt really spiritual actually I don't know if there's another way of putting it felt maybe it was meant to happen. And does that accidental connection To Frank Warrell inspire you? Sometimes you're searching for meaning, why dig deeper or why do more? And so to have a connection like that helps you.

Take that legacy on and think about, okay, how can we embody that spirit in the future generations and the pride in the community and the history. It's something that I do stop and reflect on every now and then. I think that is incredible to think that there's that connection between someone who I didn't know, but know of the legacy and had such a direct influence in my life. After Frank Worrall retired from international cricket, he turned down highly paid jobs and instead worked The University of the West Indies. He also led programmes to get cricket played in the smaller islands where the talents of the people there had been ignored. He would surely have approved of the sort of outreach work that Ebony Rainford Brent is doing today. Marxist historian and cricket writer C.L.R. James said of Worrall that it was the man

His side who had no social status whatever, for whose interest and welfare he was always primarily concerned. Rex Alston of the BBC once asked Worrall about his plan. For the future. Now you've had a wonderful life so far. Mostly cricket, much travel. Have you got any regrets in the way that your life has gone so far? Um, none at all. I'd love to live it all over. Beginning of 1967, Worrall was in India on a university lecture tour. Inspiring young people from different backgrounds to share the same ideals. He was taken ill, he flew back to Jamaica where he was

Diagnosed with leukemia. Frank's team mate, Jackie Hendrix, was one of the last people to visit him. And saw him, you know, lying there, and he was still without sense of humor. Sort of passing it off, if you know what I mean. It was a very sad occasion, I must tell you. Oh, gosh, it caused a lot of grief. I must tell you, with me anyway, because I did admire the man so much. We had become so close to Frank as far as the feeling for him as someone who really cared for us and who was such a force investing in this cricket. That force was extinguished just before 10 o'clock on Monday morning, the 13th of March, 1967. at five.

Frank Warrell's memorial service in Jamaica, the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Sir Philip Sherlock, told the congregation how a great West Indian cricketer had become a great West Indian. When he led the West Indies to victory, the world was at his feet. He was for the West Indian the embodiment of achievement. This is what Sir Frank helped to build into. This society of ours, this society in which has sold on the part of our history the dominant motive of state. Exploitation of the human being, in which for so long there was no respect for men.

Women. He helped to build into this society of ours a sense of greatness. Our fellowship where once there was hatred, what a debt we owe to Frank Worrell. Credit was his medium, but excellence, excellence was the man's purpose. But the man's achievement. - It's still quite early in the morning and I've come to the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill to the north of Bridgetown and... This is where Frank Warrell, his wife and his daughter are buried and as you walk up a fine set of steps you get to pass a wall full of plaques listing the centuries made by great West Indian batters.

Get right to the top of the steps and there's a plaque here for Frank M.M. Worrall, 131, not out against England, Georgetown, British Guyana, 1948. That was his first test. And you climb a little further and right in front of you are a huge set of painted white cricket stumps. They must be 10 metres high, concrete bales on the top of them. And at the foot of those stumps is Frank Warrell's grave. This is a... Poignant place of course it is because Frank Warrell was only 42 when he died of leukemia in 1967. It was no age at all and one wonders what more he would have gone on to achieve been given a long life but there's also a heartening symmetry This place because I'm overlooking a wonderful cricket oval and behind me are the halls of residence for students and the West Indian cricket team.

And the University of the West Indies are really the only two remaining symbols of unity. This whole region and Frank Warrell lived his brief but brilliant life at the heart of both of them. World Service. Be careful. ♪ I'm ready to move on ♪ Healthy. Baby's skin starts from the bottom. Pampers Swaddlers diapers absorb wetness away from the skin better than the leading value brand with up to 100% leak proof protection to help keep your baby's skin dry. Don't forget to pair With new Pampers Free and Gentle Wipes. They clean better and are five times stronger than Huggies Natural Care.

Clean up without fear of tearing, no matter the mess. For trusted protection, Trust Pampers, the number one pediatrician recommended brand. Welcome to the bright side. A new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine hosted by me, Danielle Robay and me, Simone Boyce. Today we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more. We'll hear from celebrities, authors, experts, and listeners like you. Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side. From Hello Sunshine on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.