In one of my Grammar School term reports the Housemaster wrote something like 'could do better in class if he paid less attention to cricket.' I reached 1st XI there. Our professional coach had been Reg Sinfield, a Hertfordshire man who had played for Gloucestershire and England. He had actually got the famous Australian, Don Bradman, out in a Test Match. At Gran Canaria recently I met a cricket coach currently working for John Embury, the England Test Cricketer, who told me that Reg had been his team-mate and had recently died at the age of eighty-five.
Whilst I was still at school and for a few months after I left, I played on Sundays for Waltham Cross on what used to be Bishop's College Field next to the 'Crocodile' Pub in College Road, Cheshunt. The 'Croc' was a very old beerhouse, well patronised on Saturday nights by thirsty dancers from the sixpenny 'Hops' run by Dad at the Labour Hall opposite. I used to cut up sandwiches and rolls etc., for the interval, but not many of the young men and girls had them - they were all over the road at the Croc.
Dancing did not start seriously until after the pub closed. It has been rebuilt in the modern style and considerably enlarged with a good reputation for business lunches and evening meals. All you could get in those days was a bag of crisps and a biscuit for the dog. The cricket field is now a large car park for the Borough Offices which are now in the old College buildings, previously a Seminary for the Church of England. It had previously been Cheshunt College, founded in 1768, but had removed to Cambridge where it is now part of the University.
Tottenham Gas Company had an excellent Sports Club near the Gas Works, and it is still operating. Before the War Mervyn Moore and I played for several years in the 1st XI, and spent a lot of time in the clubhouse after matches playing snooker. People didn't have cars in those days and we went to away games sitting on benches on the open back of a coke delivery lorry, which didn't use petrol but had a steam engine fired by a coke furnace underneath. The funnel stuck out over the driver's cab and belched out smoke and smuts which went on our clothes. The ladies very rarely came with us!
During the War I always played for whatever Regimental Unit I was in as well as for the Private Club in Paisley, some of whose team played for Scotland.
I have already mentioned playing for Harborne in Birmingham and the tentative approach from Warwickshire County, which I didn't proceed with. When I finally got back to Cheshunt I joined the Cricket Club, one of my ambitions since being a child. I used to go every weekend to see my heroes - John Speed, Dixie Dean, Herbert Taylor, and especially Nichol Greene, a famous name in club cricket. His picture and a tribute is in the Clubhouse, and I have a photograph of it. Now I was playing side by side with them, until we left to go to Ipswich.
I presented a bench seat to the Club in memory of Aunt Bet and Uncle Jim who were members of the Tennis Section, in 1988, and took a photograph of it with some of my old team mates, who are still around. One of these is Henry Tilly who went on to become a professional for Middlesex County, and another one is Les Home, the current President, who played in the same team as myself at Bishops College Field fifty years before.
Tottenham Gas used to send a team every year to play Ipswich Gas on the King George V Ground at Whitton, so when I went there to work I joined Ipswich Greyhound C.C. whose ground it was. Greyhound had been formed by the Masters at Ipswich School so that they could play on Sundays. Their first committee meeting had been held at the Greyhound Pub not far from the College which is how the Club got its name. I became Chairman and 1st XI Captain the following year. We enjoyed our trips out to the seaside towns like Lowestoft, Yarmouth and Clacton, and other towns but after a few years I found I was doing all the work and being imposed on, so I resigned and joined Ipswich and East Suffolk, playing for them until we came to Dunstable.
My wicket keeper at Ipswich Greyhound was Cecil Studd. I have a photograph wherein I am leading the team out on to the field at Frinton. Cecil is wearing his England sweater and cap bearing the English Emblem - a Golden Crown about three Golden Lions - which he was fully entitled to wear. Whenever we played against new opponents he made a point of wearing them - it was halfway towards winning. In the bar afterwards we finally had to divulge the secret - yes, he did play for England, as goalkeeper in the hockey team, not cricket.
In the same photograph is little Willie Jones, another International sportsman - he played for Wales Amateur Football Team, and later as a professional for Ipswich Town Football Club.
Mentioning hockey reminds me that our neighbours at Tolworth House had twin daughters, Jackie and Julie Templey, who also played hockey for England. Their mother's sister was June Brown - Dot Cotton of 'Eastenders'. She lived round the corner in Spring Road. Percy Edwards, the Bird Impressionist also lived in Spring Road, at the bottom of my garden.
The Templeys kept white rabbits in cages in their garden. Our cat 'Clytie' (Clytemnestra) was a good hunter and would bring all sorts of prey - rats, mice, birds etc., - and deposit them outside our back door. It's a cat's way of showing gratitude. Two nights running she left baby white rabbits there, so the next night I kept watch. She went next door, sat on top of a cage and flicked open the latch with her paw. Prize No. 3. I had to tell Bill Templey. He wasn't all that pleased, and changed all the latches to catproof. He'd been very puzzled.
John Cobbald was a gentleman farmer who played cricket regularly all his life - one or twice a week - until he was eighty-six years old. He actually died on a cricket field with his pads on in the pavilion after batting. I have the press cutting about him. He was on the Committee of Suffolk County Cricket Club and several times asked me to be Captain of Suffolk 'Club and Ground.'
When I came to Dunstable to look for a house I went round to Bull Pond Lane to look at the cricket ground, and have been a member ever since, occasionally as a Committee Member. I never played for the 1st XI - after all I was fifty years old when I joined, rather too old to expect to be picked as a fast bowler.
After a couple of years the Club resurrected the Strollers because numbers of membership had increased, and for several years I alternated as Captain with Ron Daniels (another County Hockey Player). Very often the team which we picked on Monday nights bore no resemblance to the one which actually played. We would lose players to the 1st and 2nd XI's due to injuries, call-offs etc., and the two Ronnies suffered with weakened teams, either being one or two short or made up with boys.
One day I arrived at Chesham, looked in our dressing room, and saw two adults and eight boys all between thirteen to fifteen years old. "Not again" I moaned. The opposing Captain came in, looked around and must have given a great big inner smile at what he saw. I lost the toss. "You can bat first" he said. I'd have done exactly the same in his shoes. "All right you boys, who can bat, and who can bowl?" Seven youthful hands pointed immediately at an insignificant looking lad in the corner. He was about fourteen years old, had curly black hair and round spectacles with white plastic rims. "Put him in first, it'll be all right" they chorused. "But we're playing against grown men. They all look about six feet tall" I groaned.
The boy did me proud. They couldn't get him out. He scored over seventy runs - the highest anyone in the team scored all season - and we drew. When we got back to Dunstable Clubhouse I tackled our Coach, Pat Feakes, who had played professional cricket for Hampshire. "Who is that boy? He's marvellous." "Oh, Tim. Yes, he'll play for England one day."
He did. R.T. (Tim) Robinson played in Test Cricket for England all over the world when he grew up. He is now Captain of Notts County.
I played cricket at Club Level for about fifty-five years and reckon to have taken over three thousand wickets. Perhaps 1989 will turn out to have been my last season. If so then I will have gone out with a bang because in my last game of that season I scored the winning hit with a boundary.
My only regret is that none of the boys has taken up the game, with the occasional exception of James. There was a time when Hilary reckoned she was as good as any of the Club's boys (in spite of the fact that Tim Robinson was one of them) and she took umbrage because they wouldn't let her play in the Junior's team. I have given the Club a six foot bench similar to the one I gave to Cheshunt Sports Club in memory of Aunt Bet and Uncle Jim, and have also founded the 'Ron Saggers Trophy' for junior bowlers. There is additional money in my Will to keep it going for a few extra years.