The most important value I've taught my children is respect for every creed, colour or race. When we bleed, we bleed the same blood. I've always taught my kids never to look down on anyone or to not have anyone look down on them.
The problem with West Indies cricket is that the talent is there but there is no cohesion. Everybody's pulling in different directions; the players, the selectors, the management.
If you don't know your history, you don't have an idea how you channel things in your life. Knowing that history, I was able to fulfil my goals.
Life is not all about parties and frolicking. You have to show you care for people, too.
I've played in some spectacularly scenic grounds in Cape Town and Johannesburg, but Papua New Guinea in the Seventies was the most remote place I'd been for my cricketing career.
The West Indies team I played for in the 1970s and 80s was truly blessed to have so many brilliant individuals in one group. We had many great fast bowlers but the deadliest was my fellow Antiguan Andy Roberts.
I believe in my race, colour. I never felt inferior to anyone. Maybe that's why the folks who made me feel that way, may think Vivian Richards is the most arrogant guy on earth, but no. I bat for human beings, equal rights.
I have four kids with three mums, but I'm very close to them all.
Sport in itself has this power. If you are a poet or a singer, people gravitate. I may not be in the same category, but I will make a comparison with Bob Marley. So it isn't just cricket where social commentary plays a huge part.
You have T20 and that also plays a part in some of the shots batsmen play. You see guys playing the same shots in T20s and Tests and are sometimes lucky to get away with it.
When you are playing the longer version, there are times when you don't have to get bat on ball on a regular basis but maybe a good leave outside the off stump can play its part in you surviving and the time that you would like to spend on the crease.
I hope that there can be a solution where T20 is still a huge part of the game, especially if young guys today understand what a Test match is all about. To me, you have to learn the game from the grass-roots and then reach the next stage where you can be explosive.
There are individuals out there who use the body protection as a form of staying power to go on as long as possible. That's the worst way anybody can be thinking, that you should cover yourself in a suit of armour, to make yourself brave, or to enable you to hook - when you never hooked in your life - just because you've got a helmet on.
I had a wonderful childhood in Antigua growing up in a family with three other brothers and no sisters, so you can imagine the little fights and scraps we had.
Guys are playing a lot of limited overs cricket and not making that adjustment when it comes to the longer version and pay a price for that.
Wherever the fight is, I'm going to be fighting.
When I grew up, my father used to say that cricket is not a profession, cricket cannot bring you food. But I think he lived to see the day when I was actually paid.
I won the glare with the bowler every time, because I knew that at some time he was going to have to turn around and go back to his mark.
Test matches to me are the caviar compared to the fast food stuff. Having the ability and the constitution to triumph over five days is what it's all about.
My dad was assistant governor of the prison, so there were times when he would bring some of that discipline home. He was the enforcer, whereas my mother, who was a stay-at-home mum, was always the pacifier.
