Less familiar flannelled fools

J. L. Carr

THE FABER BOOK OF CRICKET edited by Michael and Simon Davie

Faber, f9.95

This is a felicitous selection. Its one sour note is struck by Sir William Rees-Mogg's hanging summing-up of the Somerset County Committee's winter decisions. At least A. C. Maclaren's ironic, 'Well, there's one comfort: if the boat goes down, at least that b***** Barnes will go down with us', has its dark side of wit.

And it is a bold selection. At long last, that ridiculous village smith, huffing and puffing his knee-capping path through miscellany after miscellany has been drop- ped. Nor have these editors spared many another venerable repetitious anthologee. Well done! Not for them to await Mrs Thatcher's fourth or fifth term of office and that longed-for Act forbidding anthologists to quarry more than two-thirds of their excavation from other anthologies.

Of course, they could have been bolder. Where is Thos. Pemberton? And Mr Heniker-Gottley? Or Newman, Alexander Skelding, King Edward VII? (Plainly this review must have an appendix.) And how informative the book is! For instance, did you know that the Duke of Dorset rewarded John Small with a Genoese violin? Or that, until 'bowled by Death's unerring Ball', that worthy not only made bass-fiddles but, for 75 years, played one in Petersfield Church Band? And without spectacles? Or that, meeting by night a fierce bull, he played himself backwards to a five-barred gate which (of course), instrument and all, he leapt? There are numerous similarly rewarding items . . . such as Pooley's fool-proof system of running out batsmen but, as the book has no index, I cannot find it a second time.

At one time or another, all information comes in useful. Schoolmasters, impress this upon your pupils, fathers upon your children. Even tomorrow a person on your train may well ask if fiddles were ever manufactured elsewhere than Cremona.

There are many really excellent pieces — I. A. R. Peebles on Sidney Barnes (although regrettably he does not mention that, well into his sixties and playing for Smethwick, as he bowled you could hear the creaking hidden harness which held his limbs together). Then there is Alan Ross's walk around the Jam Palace and Ranjit- singhi's bedroom-shrine, Frederick Gale's requirements (a vestry feud, stock ancients and stocks) for the only sort of villages worth playing against. And Gavin Ewart has an extraordinary catalogue in verse of sullied fame. Oh dear, how many runners who renown outran died by rope, razor or drink! Thank God, he has not heard of what befell poor George Macauley. (Do you remember his reply to Edgar Oldfield when toiling against the wind, 'It's like bowling up t'bloody cellar steps', or that 76 which saved us in 1926?).

There are many such delights. One quite unexpected catch is Evelyn Waugh's account of a most extraordinary game in which he captained both sides and, whilst batting, changed the bowling. The Forden- den blacksmith will never get his place back now. And Ronald Mason's Ham- mond is but one of an impressive gallery of portraits.

Other bookish celebrities do not show up so well. Apart from being once observed playing in braces, the first Lord Tennyson would be dropped from any fifth eleven on the form of this extract from `The Princess' and as for Charles Words- worth (squeezed in on the strength of an uncle) and Masefield • • . well literary idolatry can go too far. On the other hand, the astonishing copulatory episode from 'Finnegan's Wake', and E. V. Lucas's sighting of Joseph Conrad at Canterbury enjoying the crowd but not the cricket, indisputably earn their places.

Some pieces have true style. But it is like that with players, Victor Trumper must have had style but so, in his heavy-handed way, must W. W. Armstrong. Style may be grace, charm, cuts and glances but, too, it can be a stubborn, purposeful plod. I suppose it amounts to the right way, exactly the right way to reach the right conclusion in the right circumstances. Well, here, amongst many and in their several ways, it may be observed in the writing of Edmund Blunden, Miss Mitford and John Nyren.

Nyren (descending, like Moses with the tablets, from Halfpenny Down) — laconic, dry, never a word wasted, an instant portraitist. Miss Mary Russell Mitford informative, infinitely detailed, tongue-in- cheek. How unfair that such silly fathers should have so delightful daughters! And then Edmund Blunden — ruminative, dis- cursive, above all, a man with a liking for people, seeing cricket as an everyday continuation of rural labour rather than a pastime.

For he had discerned that the game itself, if it is found in its natural bearings, is only the agreeable wicket-gate to a landscape of human joys and sorrows and is greatest where it fades imperceptibly into their wider horizons.

And he is right. It isn't just another game. This hook proclaims it. This collection has been clearly printed on non-eye-blinding paper by Mackays of Chatham. When opened, its binders have seen to it that it stays open. A less lack-lustre jacket would have helped it on its way.

Appendix

Thos. Pemberton, Vicar of Eastwood, c.1870, having married, was told by his bride as they left the church that he could no longer use his vicarage as the cricket club-house. Mr P. Welbourn, temporarily Hon Sec of the East Molesley Club, politely yet firmly demanded of the opposing skipper that he take off Mr Heniker-Gottley because his into the were being hit so frequently the River Thames that the club's water" spaniel had refused to recover further balls. Newman, Hants, having failed in an appeal against bad light, responded to his partner, Lord Tennyson's 'Can you hear me, New- man?' with 'Yes, my Lord, but where are you speaking from?' Alexander Skelding, an umpire, adjudi cated in favour of two successive appeals for lbw. When the third ball struck the leg of W. T. Luckes, Somerset, he again raised his finger and pronounced in tones of deep solemnity, 'As God is my witness, that Is Out also'.

King Edward VII who, with immense difficulty, had been persuaded to take part in a game, was immediately bowled out by an over-excited Norfolk curate.