By Brian Sanderson,
Recently I purchased the above book on e-bay as I like to collect books on the history of Yorkshire Cricket Leagues . Reading the book a number of interesting facts came out.
The League was established on the 6th of April 1899 at the Green Dragon Hotel, Leeds.I did not now the hotel and found out that in the Leeds photographic archives there is a picture of the Green Dragon yard which is next to the Guildford Hotel near Leeds Town Hall.There were 22 clubs in the first offical year of 1900.Clubs were Barnsley, Bradford, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield , Keighley,Leeds, Sipton,Wakefield, Bingley , Bowling Old Lane , Idle, Saltaire, Yeadon, Brighouse, Elland, Harrogate, Hull, Ilkley ,Otley, Rotherham and Sheffield United.
It lists a number of matches and one which caught my eye was in 1910 Morley 34 with Peel ex Yorhshire was top score of 6 runs. Yeadon won by 5 wickets. Bobby Peel was sacked by Yorkshire for being drunk on the field during a match. He was great friends with Geirge Hirst and the two of them put two sides to play against each other in 1922 and 1923 which acted as search for county talent. They were played at Headingley with Peel and Hirst as umpires. You can see pictures of the match on Pathie Film Archives under Yorkshire cricket.
In 1952 there were 23 colliery clubs and two are interesting who no longer play.Hickleton Main won the County Championship in 1946 and 1947. One of the players was Freddie Brown ex England cricketer who was not playing First Class cricket. During the war he was in the same Prison -of -War camp as Bill Bowes in Chieti , Italy. He weight before the war was 14 1/2 stone put after the war it was 10 stone.There is photograph of him in the book in the Hickleton team but was not captain. He went on to be England captain in the 1950-51 England tour of Australia.I would be interesting to find out why he played for Hicleton.Another side lost to cricket is Rawmarch which was another colliery team. They won the Championship in 1934 and lost the Victory Final to York in 1951.It seems a great shame that these clubs have folded with a great history behind them.
There were nearly 150 players who have figured in the County,s eleven played for, or been associted with the Yorkshire Cricket Council at that time. They included players from W.R.Allen of Castleford and N.W.D.Yardley Yorkshire and England captain.
An interesting book which is worth buying. All the very best for 2013 and may the summer be dry so that all cricket watchers can see the matches this wish to see.
Thursday 27 December 2012
Wednesday 19 December 2012
An enviable life
posted by John Winn
A little over twelve months ago I made a posting prompted by reading the memoirs of Clive van Ryneveld, South African cricketer, England rugby international and a politician who took a stand against apartheid. By coincidence my latest reading has been of a book written by another man from the veld, Louis Duffus.
The book 'Cricketers of the Veld' is an account of the author's travels reporting on South African cricket in the late twenties and thirties. It is not an easy book to categorise for if you are looking for detailed accounts of South Africa's test series during the period you will be disappointed for this is not that kind of book.Few matches are described in any detail: one exception to this is Duffus' account of the unfinished timeless test at Durban in 1939 which had to be abandoned to allow the England players to catch a train to Cape Town and from whence the boat back home. The last chapter of the book is devoted to this match together with the scorecard showing England's last innings closed on the second Tuesday ( it had begun on a Friday) at 654 for 5. still short of their target of almost 700 to win.
My edition of the book, which I acquired for a few pounds, was published in 1946 and 'is in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards' and a consequence of this is that it contains no photographs. The book begins with Duffus' account of how he came to England in 1929 on a very modest budget and followed that tour in an Austin 7. It vividly describes the contrasts between life on the veld with that of inter war Britain. The author was born in Australia but educated in Johannesburg and a good enough cricketer to have played five first class matches for Transvaal over an eleven year period. On the 1935 tour Duffus actually put aside his reporter's pad to act as substitute for the tourists against Glamorgan at Swansea and fielding at slip took a catch which turned the course of the match against the home team.
After the 1929 tour Duffus barely missed a South African test match until they were excluded from international cricket as a result of their government's apartheid policies. This book is but a small part of his output for in addition to cricket he also wrote on rugby union and tennis and acted as a war correspondent.
Some of his books are still available at relatively modest prices but one exception is listed in the 40th anniversary catalogue of the antiquarian cricket book seller, J. W. McKenzie. This is a book that covers two tours; the Springboks' visit to England in 1935 and the 35-36 Australian tour of South Africa. Price £250.00, still time to have a word with Santa.!
Duffus died in 1984, aged 80 and despite suffering from haemophilia lived a full life. What wouldn't many of us give to have had the talent to play first class cricket and to be an accomplished writer who saw close to 100 test matches. An enviable life indeed.
Unless Brian has other ideas this may be the last posting before Christmas so it is appropriate that I should wish our readers season's greetings and thank them for the continuing interest in the blog, still as many as forty hits a day as we approach the mid point of the winter. Thank you.
A little over twelve months ago I made a posting prompted by reading the memoirs of Clive van Ryneveld, South African cricketer, England rugby international and a politician who took a stand against apartheid. By coincidence my latest reading has been of a book written by another man from the veld, Louis Duffus.
The book 'Cricketers of the Veld' is an account of the author's travels reporting on South African cricket in the late twenties and thirties. It is not an easy book to categorise for if you are looking for detailed accounts of South Africa's test series during the period you will be disappointed for this is not that kind of book.Few matches are described in any detail: one exception to this is Duffus' account of the unfinished timeless test at Durban in 1939 which had to be abandoned to allow the England players to catch a train to Cape Town and from whence the boat back home. The last chapter of the book is devoted to this match together with the scorecard showing England's last innings closed on the second Tuesday ( it had begun on a Friday) at 654 for 5. still short of their target of almost 700 to win.
My edition of the book, which I acquired for a few pounds, was published in 1946 and 'is in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards' and a consequence of this is that it contains no photographs. The book begins with Duffus' account of how he came to England in 1929 on a very modest budget and followed that tour in an Austin 7. It vividly describes the contrasts between life on the veld with that of inter war Britain. The author was born in Australia but educated in Johannesburg and a good enough cricketer to have played five first class matches for Transvaal over an eleven year period. On the 1935 tour Duffus actually put aside his reporter's pad to act as substitute for the tourists against Glamorgan at Swansea and fielding at slip took a catch which turned the course of the match against the home team.
After the 1929 tour Duffus barely missed a South African test match until they were excluded from international cricket as a result of their government's apartheid policies. This book is but a small part of his output for in addition to cricket he also wrote on rugby union and tennis and acted as a war correspondent.
Some of his books are still available at relatively modest prices but one exception is listed in the 40th anniversary catalogue of the antiquarian cricket book seller, J. W. McKenzie. This is a book that covers two tours; the Springboks' visit to England in 1935 and the 35-36 Australian tour of South Africa. Price £250.00, still time to have a word with Santa.!
Duffus died in 1984, aged 80 and despite suffering from haemophilia lived a full life. What wouldn't many of us give to have had the talent to play first class cricket and to be an accomplished writer who saw close to 100 test matches. An enviable life indeed.
Unless Brian has other ideas this may be the last posting before Christmas so it is appropriate that I should wish our readers season's greetings and thank them for the continuing interest in the blog, still as many as forty hits a day as we approach the mid point of the winter. Thank you.
Wednesday 12 December 2012
STORY OF TWO SCOREBOOKS
By Brian Sanderson,
I used to work and play cricket for Yorkshire Bank who played in the Bradford League until they could not raise a second team at the end of 1990,s.My best friend Alan Swaby also played in the same Yorkshire Bank Second team and recently died suddenly.His son Michael found a scorebook for the 1989 season which brought memoirs back to me of the people who played in that team.The scorer for the season was Richard Swaby, Alan younger son, who deid in a car crash at a young age.
I can not remember anything of the season but only one match was rained off.We were in the First Division of the second Teams and played Pudsey St. Lawerence ,East Bierley and Bowling Old Lane.Some of the players played were as follows:
Alan Hall who opened the batting most ot season if his was not playing in the first team.Quick scoring right -hand batsman and a good fielder.
Neil Johnson who was a left-handed opening bat who was very good at scoring off his legs.Scored a lot of runs at Second team level.
Andy Davidson, one of the younger members who batted at three and was a good cover fielder.
Tim Claughton,ginger haired all-rounder who usually opened the bowling.Was a nephew of Mardsen who played in the first team.
Gary Weir ,young lad who just started playing in the side. His father supports Pudsey Congs now and follows the side during the summer.
Trevor Hope who was a excellent opening bowler who could move it both ways.Played until he was in this late forties.
Geoff Holland our left armed spin bowler who used to lending the wicket-taker in the side and I use to take many stumpingsoff.
We were all workers for the Bank and always had a good team spirit and always enjoyed our cricket.
The second scorebook was the Yorkshire trip to America ,Canada and Bermuda in 1964 which I purchased via e-bay.The Archives have not got the record of the trip so the book is now going into Yorkshire records.Scorebook was purchased at a fair so I do not know how it got here.The matches were played at New York,Toronto, Vancouver,California and Burmuda.One of the player who joined them in Bermuda was Gary Sobers who scored a century and opened the bowling.He was the first over-seas player to play for Yorkshire. I am up-dating Cricket Archive with the wickets and time of the batsmen batted.
Two different scorebooks at different levels of cricket but both are part of Yorshire Cricket Heritage.
I used to work and play cricket for Yorkshire Bank who played in the Bradford League until they could not raise a second team at the end of 1990,s.My best friend Alan Swaby also played in the same Yorkshire Bank Second team and recently died suddenly.His son Michael found a scorebook for the 1989 season which brought memoirs back to me of the people who played in that team.The scorer for the season was Richard Swaby, Alan younger son, who deid in a car crash at a young age.
I can not remember anything of the season but only one match was rained off.We were in the First Division of the second Teams and played Pudsey St. Lawerence ,East Bierley and Bowling Old Lane.Some of the players played were as follows:
Alan Hall who opened the batting most ot season if his was not playing in the first team.Quick scoring right -hand batsman and a good fielder.
Neil Johnson who was a left-handed opening bat who was very good at scoring off his legs.Scored a lot of runs at Second team level.
Andy Davidson, one of the younger members who batted at three and was a good cover fielder.
Tim Claughton,ginger haired all-rounder who usually opened the bowling.Was a nephew of Mardsen who played in the first team.
Gary Weir ,young lad who just started playing in the side. His father supports Pudsey Congs now and follows the side during the summer.
Trevor Hope who was a excellent opening bowler who could move it both ways.Played until he was in this late forties.
Geoff Holland our left armed spin bowler who used to lending the wicket-taker in the side and I use to take many stumpingsoff.
We were all workers for the Bank and always had a good team spirit and always enjoyed our cricket.
The second scorebook was the Yorkshire trip to America ,Canada and Bermuda in 1964 which I purchased via e-bay.The Archives have not got the record of the trip so the book is now going into Yorkshire records.Scorebook was purchased at a fair so I do not know how it got here.The matches were played at New York,Toronto, Vancouver,California and Burmuda.One of the player who joined them in Bermuda was Gary Sobers who scored a century and opened the bowling.He was the first over-seas player to play for Yorkshire. I am up-dating Cricket Archive with the wickets and time of the batsmen batted.
Two different scorebooks at different levels of cricket but both are part of Yorshire Cricket Heritage.
Monday 10 December 2012
Derbyshire's greatest bowler?
Posted by John Winn
Readers may recall in August the publication of a magazine unashamedly nostalgic in content looking back at cricket from the 50s to the 90s. The magazine was called Backspin and the first edition was described by the publishers as a pilot. I bought the magazine, enjoyed the read and am pleased to see that the second edition is now on sale and future editions will be published quarterly. The next five issues can be secured for £20.
Tucked away in the August copy was a note about Darley Abbey CC, members of the Derbyshire Premier and County Cricket Leagues who in May 2007 had been the victims of an arson attack on the club pavilion which had taken four years to rebuild, but despite the setback run three senior sides and a number of junior teams. Readers were invited to mage a donation to club funds in return for which they would receive a copy of a biography of Les Jackson, without much argument Derbyshire's greatest bowler although some might press the claims of Darley's president, Mike Hendrick.
The author of the slim volume,140 pages, is Mike Carey, very much a Derbyshire man, if you can pick up Radio Derby then you can here him introduce 'Memorable Melodies' each Sunday afternoon at four which although I have not heard it sounds as though it might be typical local radio listening for that time of the week. Mike used to write for both The Guardian and The Telegraph and presented John Player League cricket on BBC 2 as well as a stint on TMS.
I sent a donation and as well as receiving a copy of the book I was delighted to receive letters of thanks from the author and club secretary Dave Jepson. 'Les Jackson A Derbyshire Legend'. had been published in 1997 and the fact that the author still had spare copies15 years on suggested it had not sold like hot cakes or even Derbyshire oatcakes, a view that was reinforced when I noted copies were available in the county club shop end of season sale for £1, which believe me is less than my donation! The book was very briefly reviewed in Wisden in 1998 and described as' a little book about a great hearted man', which sums it up nicely. Les Jackson was a man about whom there should be a book but I suspect you could dig deeper even than the subject did in his winter occupation as a coal miner without digging up any dirt or racy incidents or the kind of colourful stories that appear in a more recent biography of another great fast bowler. Les was just a thoroughly decent man and apart perhaps from some of those who made up the 1670 wickets he took in 17 seasons for his county you probably wouldn't find anybody who would say a bad word about a man who heard the call of over almost 14000 times.
Of course there is a peg to hang a story on for despite all those wickets and there are no shortage of great cricketers quoted in the book prepared to speak of his greatness built on accuracy, almost 30% of his overs in the championship were maidens, and mastery of seam movement. The peg is of course that he only played two tests and they were 12 years apart and yet in the book's foreword Fred Truman says he should have played at least 30 more. One answer to the question why didn't he? is another question, who would you have left out? Jackson's two tests were in 1949 and 1961, nicely wrapped round an era of great English fast bowlers: FST himself plus Statham, Tyson, Bedser and you may wish to add more.
Jackson died in 2007 aged 86 and his Wisden obituary addresses the question as to why a man about whom county batsmen got more and more nervous the nearer they got to Chesterfield or Derby was ignored by the selectors for twelve years and after his second test was dropped in favour of Jack Flavell. The conspiracy theories are there which touch upon the prejudices of selectors F R Brown and Gubby Allen but perhaps the explanation is simply that he was at his prime in an era when 'unfashionable bowlers from unfashionable counties were at a disadvantage'. In the same volume of Wisden are obituaries of two other men who were feared for their accuracy up and down the country, Tom Cartwright and Derek Shackleton who together with Les Jackson played only fourteen tests in total.' Cricketers' cricketers', even if not favoured by selectors.
Readers may recall in August the publication of a magazine unashamedly nostalgic in content looking back at cricket from the 50s to the 90s. The magazine was called Backspin and the first edition was described by the publishers as a pilot. I bought the magazine, enjoyed the read and am pleased to see that the second edition is now on sale and future editions will be published quarterly. The next five issues can be secured for £20.
Tucked away in the August copy was a note about Darley Abbey CC, members of the Derbyshire Premier and County Cricket Leagues who in May 2007 had been the victims of an arson attack on the club pavilion which had taken four years to rebuild, but despite the setback run three senior sides and a number of junior teams. Readers were invited to mage a donation to club funds in return for which they would receive a copy of a biography of Les Jackson, without much argument Derbyshire's greatest bowler although some might press the claims of Darley's president, Mike Hendrick.
The author of the slim volume,140 pages, is Mike Carey, very much a Derbyshire man, if you can pick up Radio Derby then you can here him introduce 'Memorable Melodies' each Sunday afternoon at four which although I have not heard it sounds as though it might be typical local radio listening for that time of the week. Mike used to write for both The Guardian and The Telegraph and presented John Player League cricket on BBC 2 as well as a stint on TMS.
I sent a donation and as well as receiving a copy of the book I was delighted to receive letters of thanks from the author and club secretary Dave Jepson. 'Les Jackson A Derbyshire Legend'. had been published in 1997 and the fact that the author still had spare copies15 years on suggested it had not sold like hot cakes or even Derbyshire oatcakes, a view that was reinforced when I noted copies were available in the county club shop end of season sale for £1, which believe me is less than my donation! The book was very briefly reviewed in Wisden in 1998 and described as' a little book about a great hearted man', which sums it up nicely. Les Jackson was a man about whom there should be a book but I suspect you could dig deeper even than the subject did in his winter occupation as a coal miner without digging up any dirt or racy incidents or the kind of colourful stories that appear in a more recent biography of another great fast bowler. Les was just a thoroughly decent man and apart perhaps from some of those who made up the 1670 wickets he took in 17 seasons for his county you probably wouldn't find anybody who would say a bad word about a man who heard the call of over almost 14000 times.
Of course there is a peg to hang a story on for despite all those wickets and there are no shortage of great cricketers quoted in the book prepared to speak of his greatness built on accuracy, almost 30% of his overs in the championship were maidens, and mastery of seam movement. The peg is of course that he only played two tests and they were 12 years apart and yet in the book's foreword Fred Truman says he should have played at least 30 more. One answer to the question why didn't he? is another question, who would you have left out? Jackson's two tests were in 1949 and 1961, nicely wrapped round an era of great English fast bowlers: FST himself plus Statham, Tyson, Bedser and you may wish to add more.
Jackson died in 2007 aged 86 and his Wisden obituary addresses the question as to why a man about whom county batsmen got more and more nervous the nearer they got to Chesterfield or Derby was ignored by the selectors for twelve years and after his second test was dropped in favour of Jack Flavell. The conspiracy theories are there which touch upon the prejudices of selectors F R Brown and Gubby Allen but perhaps the explanation is simply that he was at his prime in an era when 'unfashionable bowlers from unfashionable counties were at a disadvantage'. In the same volume of Wisden are obituaries of two other men who were feared for their accuracy up and down the country, Tom Cartwright and Derek Shackleton who together with Les Jackson played only fourteen tests in total.' Cricketers' cricketers', even if not favoured by selectors.
Wednesday 5 December 2012
Doing my corrections
posted by John Winn
In a posting I made last month I made two errors in describing the life of Philip van Straubenzee. These have emerged through my reading of the said Colonel's autobiography, entitled Desert, Jungle and Dale. The last of these a reference to the many happy days he spent at Spennithorne in Wensleydale.
In my account of van Straubenzee's family history I said that he was of Dutch descent which a pedant might argue was not quite right. The ancestor who came to England in 1745 was Philip William Casimir van Straubenzee who was born in Tournai, now part of Belgium but at that time that area was in possession of the Austrian Habsburgs. What that made Philip William I'm not quite sure but he was in the Dutch army and bored with garrison duty he sought permission to join the Hessian troops and this is where I really did go wrong. 12000 Hessian troops came to England in 1745 under a treaty obligation to defend the House of Hanover against the Jacobite cause, not, as I said, in support of the rebellion. Apologies
From a cricketing perspective what is important that Philip was stationed in Yorkshire near Guisborough where he met and married Jane Turner and although they returned briefly to the continent they came back permanently in 1748 and the English military tradition of the van Straubenzee family was set in motion. Just one last piece of history; Charles Thomas van Straubenzee was wounded at Sebastopol in the Crimea War and he brought back with him the Sebastopol Cross that today stands on the family burial plot in the churchyard just a short distance from the cricket ground donated to the village in 1947 by the author of Desert, Jungle and Dale .In the event that you might visit that part of Wensleydale you could view the cross, visit the medieval church and watch some cricket. Phew, got there in the end.
As the above suggests I have ben concentrating on cricket in Wensleydale in my research but that has not stopped me harassing by email the patient staff at The Swaledale Museum in Reeth. They have kindly scanned and emailed me a copy of the rules for The Swaledale and District League which although not dated seems likely to have been published in the 1920s. Sadly it does not list the member clubs but shows as President one Hubert Melville Martineau, a prominent enough figure in the game to have had an obituary in Wisden. Martineau had a private ground near Maidenhead where he entertained touring teams including the 1926 Australians. How he came to be President of a cricket league in Yorkshire remains a mystery but an intriguing one nevertheless.
In a posting I made last month I made two errors in describing the life of Philip van Straubenzee. These have emerged through my reading of the said Colonel's autobiography, entitled Desert, Jungle and Dale. The last of these a reference to the many happy days he spent at Spennithorne in Wensleydale.
In my account of van Straubenzee's family history I said that he was of Dutch descent which a pedant might argue was not quite right. The ancestor who came to England in 1745 was Philip William Casimir van Straubenzee who was born in Tournai, now part of Belgium but at that time that area was in possession of the Austrian Habsburgs. What that made Philip William I'm not quite sure but he was in the Dutch army and bored with garrison duty he sought permission to join the Hessian troops and this is where I really did go wrong. 12000 Hessian troops came to England in 1745 under a treaty obligation to defend the House of Hanover against the Jacobite cause, not, as I said, in support of the rebellion. Apologies
From a cricketing perspective what is important that Philip was stationed in Yorkshire near Guisborough where he met and married Jane Turner and although they returned briefly to the continent they came back permanently in 1748 and the English military tradition of the van Straubenzee family was set in motion. Just one last piece of history; Charles Thomas van Straubenzee was wounded at Sebastopol in the Crimea War and he brought back with him the Sebastopol Cross that today stands on the family burial plot in the churchyard just a short distance from the cricket ground donated to the village in 1947 by the author of Desert, Jungle and Dale .In the event that you might visit that part of Wensleydale you could view the cross, visit the medieval church and watch some cricket. Phew, got there in the end.
As the above suggests I have ben concentrating on cricket in Wensleydale in my research but that has not stopped me harassing by email the patient staff at The Swaledale Museum in Reeth. They have kindly scanned and emailed me a copy of the rules for The Swaledale and District League which although not dated seems likely to have been published in the 1920s. Sadly it does not list the member clubs but shows as President one Hubert Melville Martineau, a prominent enough figure in the game to have had an obituary in Wisden. Martineau had a private ground near Maidenhead where he entertained touring teams including the 1926 Australians. How he came to be President of a cricket league in Yorkshire remains a mystery but an intriguing one nevertheless.
Monday 3 December 2012
Two Yorkshire Giants
posted by John Winn
Hawke, Martin Bladen, seventh Lord, died on October 10th (1937), aged 78
Jackson, Rt Hon Sir F Stanley, died on March 9th (1948), aged 76
These two stark lines in the obituary section towards the rear of the appropriate Wisden Almanacks tell us nothing of the lives of these two great men of Yorkshire and England cricket but each received a generous allocation of space in special tributes in the same volumes. I have recently read biographies of the two men by the same author, James P Coldham.
It is fitting that one of the contributors to the seven pages devoted to Lord Hawke, you had to be very close to him to use anything but that title, should be Jackson, for reading the books in close succession it is clear how intertwined their lives were. In the index on Hawke 'Jacker' is mentioned 36 times and in the story of the younger man the seventh Lord falls just one short of a half century of references.
Both of course led very privileged lives. Eton for Hawke, Harrow for Jackson then the same path to Cambridge, Yorkshire and England, and each very much part of England's and Yorkshire's cricketing establishment. Jackson followed Hawke as President of Yorkshire on the latter's death and both captained their country. If one searches for differences between them then they are most marked by two omissions from Jackson's CV, namely that business commitments prevented him touring Australia and that he was never county captain although he did lead the side on occasions. Hawke by contrast led the side for more than 25 years, something that is quite inconceivable now. With all due respect to the present incumbent it is hard to see Andrew Gale leading the side out of the Carnegie Pavilion in 2035! Now there's a thought, the Carnegie Pavilion in 2035, wonder if the debenture seats will be full.
Coldham writes in a neat economical style and I enjoyed both books, the one on Lord Hawke slightly more than the biography of 'Jacker'. Partly because I read it first and partly I think because Hawke's is a slightly more interesting tale to tell. Apart from his involvement in cricket he travelled widely, not just to play cricket but he was fond of tiger shooting to the extent that after a tour of India in 1893 he stayed behind to search Nepal for the unfortunate beast. As well as India, Hawke played cricket in Argentina, South Africa, Australia, North America and West Indies, and all by sea travel.
Jackson was a member of the cricketing part of that tour of India but was not amongst the shooting party. That 1893 trip appears to have been his only experience of overseas cricket for his visit to South Africa in 1899 was as a member of The Royal Lancaster (sic) Regiment and the much more serious business of The Boer War
Both books are clearly the product of very diligent research and if you enjoy an uncomplicated style then you may well appreciate Coldham's work.
Hawke, Martin Bladen, seventh Lord, died on October 10th (1937), aged 78
Jackson, Rt Hon Sir F Stanley, died on March 9th (1948), aged 76
These two stark lines in the obituary section towards the rear of the appropriate Wisden Almanacks tell us nothing of the lives of these two great men of Yorkshire and England cricket but each received a generous allocation of space in special tributes in the same volumes. I have recently read biographies of the two men by the same author, James P Coldham.
It is fitting that one of the contributors to the seven pages devoted to Lord Hawke, you had to be very close to him to use anything but that title, should be Jackson, for reading the books in close succession it is clear how intertwined their lives were. In the index on Hawke 'Jacker' is mentioned 36 times and in the story of the younger man the seventh Lord falls just one short of a half century of references.
Both of course led very privileged lives. Eton for Hawke, Harrow for Jackson then the same path to Cambridge, Yorkshire and England, and each very much part of England's and Yorkshire's cricketing establishment. Jackson followed Hawke as President of Yorkshire on the latter's death and both captained their country. If one searches for differences between them then they are most marked by two omissions from Jackson's CV, namely that business commitments prevented him touring Australia and that he was never county captain although he did lead the side on occasions. Hawke by contrast led the side for more than 25 years, something that is quite inconceivable now. With all due respect to the present incumbent it is hard to see Andrew Gale leading the side out of the Carnegie Pavilion in 2035! Now there's a thought, the Carnegie Pavilion in 2035, wonder if the debenture seats will be full.
Coldham writes in a neat economical style and I enjoyed both books, the one on Lord Hawke slightly more than the biography of 'Jacker'. Partly because I read it first and partly I think because Hawke's is a slightly more interesting tale to tell. Apart from his involvement in cricket he travelled widely, not just to play cricket but he was fond of tiger shooting to the extent that after a tour of India in 1893 he stayed behind to search Nepal for the unfortunate beast. As well as India, Hawke played cricket in Argentina, South Africa, Australia, North America and West Indies, and all by sea travel.
Jackson was a member of the cricketing part of that tour of India but was not amongst the shooting party. That 1893 trip appears to have been his only experience of overseas cricket for his visit to South Africa in 1899 was as a member of The Royal Lancaster (sic) Regiment and the much more serious business of The Boer War
Both books are clearly the product of very diligent research and if you enjoy an uncomplicated style then you may well appreciate Coldham's work.
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