In 1958 a major change took place in the Winn household when, for the first time, my mother and father went on holiday without me, my consolation was that I travelled abroad for the first time, with a school excursion to Belgium. Prior to this family holidays had seen us progress down the North Yorkshire coast eventually reaching Scarborough in 1951 followed by return visits in 53, 55, 56 and 57. On the first of these occasions we lodged at Miss Pinkney's guest house in Prospect Road, handy for the station and only a short walk to North Marine Road where we saw Yorkshire lose (sic) to Worcestershire by eight runs.
In 1953 we changed digs to be even nearer the cricket ground, less than two minutes walk, and this time, and on the other three visits our week's holiday coincided with the Scarborough Festival when the touring side were the star attraction. Australia in 1953, South Africa in 55, Australia again in 56 and West Indies in 57. It is not perhaps coincidence that in the missing years the opposition, India in 52 and Pakistan in 54, were not considered top drawer.
To return to 1958 when my sister was deemed responsible enough to look after her brother my parents broke with tradition and went to Torquay. This did not mean they went without cricket for on the same three September days that the Gentlemen were playing Players at Scarborough, North were playing South at The Recreation Ground, Sea Front, Torquay, followed later in the week by an England XI v A Commonwealth XI, a pair of matches that had been the basis of The Torquay Festival since its inception in 1954. I can recall my mother bringing back photographs of some of the players involved in these matches who included Ken Barrington, Tony Lock, Gary Sobers and Frank Worrell
Sadly this proved to be the last such festival for, as Wisden reports despite fine weather there was a loss of £900, over £21000 at today's prices. In addition since its inception in 1954 the festival had incurred losses and the Torquay Council which sponsored the festival decided they could no longer support it and all arrangements for 1959 were cancelled. Wisden had struck a more positive note saying when reporting on its first year that it had produced 'keen cricket'. For the record here is the England XI that lost by two wickets to the Commonwealth in 1958. D Brookes, D Kenyon, B Close, K Barrington, R Simpson, R Illingworth, F Titmus, GAR Lock, K Andrew, C Gladwin and L Jackson. Close and Illingworth did a bit of travelling for they played for Yorkshire against MCC at Scarborough on September 3,4, 5 and reached Torquay in time to take the field for The North the following day with Illingworth called into action soon enough to take the wicket of South opener Jack Robertson, stumped by Keith Andrew for 34.
This was not the end of my parents' excursions to the south coast for in 1959 I accompanied them to Bournemouth and yes we did see some cricket. More of which in my next posting. A footnote to this account of the short lived Torquay festival is that in 1979 while touring with Bexhill CC I played against Torquay at The Rec.
This photograph, taken in 1953 at The Spa Scarborough may explain why my parents opted to have a change of scene in later years.
No comments:
Post a Comment