In The Times, Michael Atherton took time out to track down Richard Austin, the former West Indies allrounder who was good enough to be signed up by Kerry Packer for his World Series Cricket venture in the late 1970s, but who is now living on the streets in Kingston.
The last time I saw Richard Austin he was living in a bush. Location, location, location, the estate agents say, and this was a well-positioned bush, to be sure, in the car park opposite the Hilton hotel in New Kingston. The Hilton hotel, you see, is where international cricket teams stay when they are in Jamaica - England are staying there now - and Austin had located on the principle that someone might just remember him and give him some money to feed his habit.
He has moved now - at least when you do not own a home, selling up is not a problem - and he inhabits the Cross Roads area of Kingston in a triangle between Tastee, the patty store, the Texaco garage and Union Square, sleeping rough, begging and, when he is flush, getting high. He is high a lot of the time, says the man who runs the garage where Austin hangs out, but people are fond of him and enjoy his company, unless he is so high that he starts talking crazy.
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