And, despite the fact the larger than life Rastafarian has had the bottom part of his left leg amputated, he is hoping to relaunch his playing career with the Villagers following a 30-year absence from the sport.

Thomas arrived in the village last June following a spell of living in a tenement flat in Glasgow.

Such is his liking for Borders life, the 50-year-old has decided to come out of his self-imposed retirement to help the local club make an impact on the Scottish cricket scene.

In an exclusive interview with TheSouthern this week Thomas explained: "I love cricket and was really pleased when I moved here to find that Borders people love the game also, and that there was a local club.

"When I first moved to Scotland I lived in Glasgow and I hated it; it was like a prison.

"I was on the verge of going back to St Lucia when someone suggested moving to the Borders and I loved it. I love the countryside and the hills and of course the fact that there is cricket here too makes it perfect.

"My neighbours are fantastic and the guys at the cricket club have also been a great help since I got here."

A former altar boy and policeman in the Royal St Lucia Police Force, Thomas gave up his job and way of life in the late 1970s when he joined the Rastafarian movement.

He was also a good football player and was a regular on the wing for his local teams, the Black Lions and Mon Repos, as well as being opening or third batsman for Praslin Cricket Club.

His change of lifestyle did not go down too well in the largely Catholic community however, and at the age of 20 Thomas packed up his belongings and moved up into the hills of St Lucia to live a self-sufficient life – giving up his job, cricket and football in the process.

Thomas told us: "In our village, Rastafarians were seen as mobs and rebels and all sorts of negative things. There was a lot of opposition to our way of life so we decided to move away and become self-sufficient."

Over the next 20 years, a small infection in his leg became gradually more serious (mainly due to the poor standards of healthcare) and eventually he had to have the bottom part of his left leg amputated.

He said: "Even the doctors at the hospital were opposed to me being a Rastafarian and were forever making me try and cut my dreadlocks off and change my ways. They didn't diagnose my skin infection until it was too late and they had to take the bottom part of my leg off." Thomas shrugs off the amputation as "just life" and refuses to let it hamper his chosen way of living.

It was during his rehab that Thomas met Scottish nurse Karen, working as a physio in St Lucia at the time. The two became an item and got married, moving back to Scotland in 1998.