New book highlighting island’s greats launched

The achievements to date of just over 50 of the island’s great sports personalities will now live on forever in the homes of Barbadians at home and abroad with the release of ‘50 Barbadian Sporting Greats’. The coffee table style book, which was written by Clarence Hiles and produced by Hiltop Publications Inc., highlights some of the island’s best-known names in sport over the past 50 years and was launched during a short ceremony at the Barbados Olympic Association yesterday.

 

With the likes of Sir Everton Weekes, Charlie Griffith, and Earl Maynard, who are all featured in the publication, in attendance, Pamela Hiles, who edited the work, said that completion of the final product was not without its challenges. Noting that Clarence, her husband, had suffered a stroke in February, completion of the project was not as easy, as Clarence, who is now recovered, lost the ability to speak, read and write.

 

Going on to state that the project was made to tie in with the island’s golden jubilee as well as the 20th anniversary of one of their annual publications, Sporting Barbados, Pamela said that it was a pleasure to see it all come together. 

 

“This book was completed by myself with the help of our designer Neil Barnard, our printer Colin Moffat and many others. This is a very, very unique book. With all our years doing our tourism magazine, which is in its 20th year, Sporting Barbados, the idea of doing something to celebrate our amazing people was a no-brainer. It was our intention to recognise and honour several of our sporting greats whether they be athletes, special administrators or commentators – people who have excelled,” Hiles said.

 

Spanning 1966 to 2016, the book shows off the accolades and achievements of Barbadian men and women of all ages with names such as Sir Charles Williams, Jim Wedderburn, Sir Wes Hall, Karen Meakins, Natalie Small, Obadele Thompson, Andrea Blackett, Deandra Dottin and Darian King, just to name a few from across the years. With contributions from the likes of Tony Cozier, Kenmore Bynoe, Robin Bradford, Pamela Hiles said that broad research and recommendations from national sporting federations would have gone into selection of personalities, and that with another edition due there were more persons to be highlighted. 

 

“The people in this book, by no means, represent all the sporting greats of this island. We do feel that the ones we have highlighted have been outstanding and the records speak for themselves,” she said.

 

With the current edition focusing on living sportspersons, the dearly departed were not left out as the book features an obituary section to pay tribute to names such as Captain Peter Short, Andrew Burke, Malcolm Marshall, Sir Conrad Hunte, Sir Clyde Walcott and Sir Frank Worrell. The book is available at Pages stores and Best of Barbados. (MP)