Lancashire League (cricket) - Beyond A Boundary

Beyond A Boundary

In C.L.R. James' autobiographical Beyond a Boundary, the Trinidadian writer writes about his visits as a young man to his friend Learie Constantine, at that time living in Nelson while playing as a professional for the town Lancashire League team. He gives a vivid sense of what it must have been like for a young West Indian to arrive in the wet and strange East Lancashire. He also describes how his subsequent education at university in Paris is helped by a local baker, and how his gradual politicisation is given a boost by meetings with local socialists, concerned with the harsh treatment and conditions suffered by the local working class millworkers. Although an extreme example, the meetings between other professional cricketers from the British Empire, and the mainly working-class amateurs of the Lancashire League, must have resulted in many other instances of mutual support and understanding.