Leg­endary for­mer crick­eter Bernard Julien will be re­mem­bered for much more than runs, wick­ets, and catch­es.

The for­mer West In­dies all-rounder, who was part of West In­dies’ his­toric World Cup-win­ning cam­paign, was giv­en a send-off he de­served at the St Fin­bar’s RC Church in West­moor­ings on Sat­ur­day. Af­ter a mo­tor pro­ces­sion from Clarke and Ba­too Fu­ner­al Home on Tragerete Road to Care­nage, be­fore ar­riv­ing at West­moor­ings, fam­i­ly, friends, and well-wish­ers shared mem­o­ries of the for­mer Test crick­eter.

The fu­ner­al brought out for­mer na­tion­al team­mates, club­mates and oth­er na­tion­al fig­ures from oth­er sports dis­ci­plines.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Dr Pa­tri­cia Butch­er and her hus­band, for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller Ken Butch­er; Caribbean Pre­mier League Cham­pi­ons Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers man­ag­er Col­in Bor­de; and Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Vice Pres­i­dent Col­in Mur­ray, who is al­so a for­mer na­tion­al youth crick­eter.

Julien scored 866 runs from 24 tests with an av­er­age of 30.9 in ad­di­tion to 50 wick­ets, but team­mate and for­mer wick­et­keep­er Deryck Mur­ray re­called he was more than just about bat­ting and bowl­ing.

“Peo­ple will al­ways talk about his hun­dreds and wick­ets, but he was a fan­tas­tic field­s­man as well.” Mur­ray, who saw the ac­tion from be­hind the stumps, re­count­ed a close game against Ja­maica at the Queen’s Park Oval, where Julien’s catch to dis­miss Mau­rice Fos­ter off the bowl­ing of In­shan Ali was the turn­ing point in the match, which T&T won.

Richard Gabriel shared in­sight in­to the man off the field, whom he re­ferred to as bet­ter than a broth­er.

“He as­sist­ed me, and he al­lowed me to live at his home at the age of 15, ap­proach­ing 16. And I came and at­tend­ed St Mary’s Col­lege. We were like broth­ers. He al­ways had some­thing good to tell me,” Gabriel said.

Es­mond Julien re­called his broth­er’s first love, and it wasn’t the game of bat and ball.

“Bernard’s first love, I can tell you, was our moth­er,” Es­mond said. “Bernard had his moth­er, our moth­er, sit­ting in the ladies’ mem­bers’ stand in Queen’s Park Oval. Lim­ing with all the big boys and the big girls, like Sir Er­rol dos San­tos and H.O.B. Wood­ing, and she laughed ha-ha-ha with them, all be­cause Bernard loved his moth­er.”

Julien al­so shared his crick­et knowl­edge with many play­ers through coach­ing. Bevon Julien was one such play­er who ben­e­fit­ed from his fa­ther’s coach­ing.

“When­ev­er he was coach­ing, he would al­ways tell us, ‘You have to be able to speak prop­er­ly’,” Bevon Julien not­ed.

“It wasn’t just about crick­et. He be­lieved that when you go in front of the cam­era or stand be­fore peo­ple, you have to speak well. He’d call his ath­letes one by one and ask, How was your knock? How did the bowl­ing go? He want­ed us to think and ex­press our­selves clear­ly, to car­ry our­selves with pride.”

Julien, who al­so added 12 one-day in­ter­na­tion­als to his 24 tests, av­er­aged 25.72 for the 18 wick­ets he took and was part of the West In­dies World Cup fi­nal win at Lord’s in 1975.

Julien, who died on Oc­to­ber 4th at age 75, leaves to mourn his wife Bren­da and nine chil­dren.