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Great Lives

Sir Trevor McDonald on Learie Constantine

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2015

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald chooses the life of Learie Constantine, the Trinidadian cricketer, politician and broadcaster who championed the rights of West Indians in Britain during the war years and afterwards. Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult?

0:06.0

What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are?

0:10.0

I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas.

0:16.4

Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth.

0:23.0

Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003.

0:27.0

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:29.0

Great Lives is a download from Radio 4.

0:32.0

We hope you enjoy what you're about to hear.

0:35.0

Picture the scene, the Caribbean island of Trinidad in 1906, a small boy and his friend innocently playing outside.

0:44.0

We were playing in the road.

0:46.0

I was no more than four or five years old

0:49.0

and two overseers were coming up on horses and I could remember my mother shouting out with real fright in her voice.

0:58.0

Don't play in the road. These white men will pass on you, you know.

1:05.0

And for the first time my consciousness was aroused

1:09.0

that white men were indifferent to the lives of colored or black people. I never forget it.

1:16.8

And it lasted years and years until I began to understand.

1:22.0

This incident at such a young age was the first of many that were to shape that man into becoming,

1:28.1

amongst many things, a compassionate radical who didn't react angrily to unfairness or bigotry, but sought to challenge

1:36.3

it with tenacity, goodwill and good humour.

1:40.5

The great life in question is Leary Constantine, cricketer, lawyer, politician, civil rights campaigner,

1:47.0

and the choice of my guess this week, the journalist Sir Trevor McDonald.

1:52.0

Trevor, you actually knew Constantine, didn't you?

...

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