LITTLE MARLOW CRICKET CLUB Newsletter – March 2015

next five years as a training centre for Territorials”'.

Mr Sandford hasn't quite got his facts right, as the pavilion

was opened in 1907, not 1914. However, its use for

military purposes was previously unknown to me, and mirrors similar use by

The Black Watch during the second World War.

The newsletter will resume publication in the autumn. In the meantime, you can

find reports and scorecards of all our matches on the

club website.

Best wishes to all for a happy and successful

season.

Richard Tedham

Welcome to the Start of the 2015 Season

The first match is less than two weeks away, so fingers crossed for a bright, sunny day (well, one can always

hope!)

This final newsletter for 2014-15 features another

fine 'Q Tips' from our President, a Player Profile

by 2nd X1 regular Colin McCrea and a look at one of the most extraordinary characters ever to grace Little Marlow's ranks.

Our club seems to be featuring regularly in books

about the Great War. An earlier newsletter recorded the mention we received in

Andrew Renshaw's impressive tome 'Lives

Of Cricket's Fallen'. Now try and checkout, as the Centenary continues to

unfold, 'The Final Over: The Cricketers of Summer 1914'

(Spellmount, £15.19 via Amazon) by Christopher

Sandford in which, on p194, we learn: "At Little Marlow

in Buckinghamshire, the widow of the local landowner named Bradish Ellames has just supplied the funds for a handsomely timbered new

clubhouse. This was intended to provide 'a cricket pavilion and tearoom in the summer,

[and] a meeting place for sober trade unionism and

cookery classes in the winter [our italics]. In the event, it was primarily used over the

OPENING FIXTURES

Our first two fixtures are listed below. Would those wishing to make themselves available please contact Tahir (tahirrashid@hotmail.co.uk or

07940 045070) for the Saturday game and Arfan (asharif01@hotmail.com or 07958 086718) for Sunday's.

Sat. 11th April Cookham Dean (Home) 1.30 pm.Sun. 12th April Wembley (Home) 1.30 pm.

Q TIPS – FROM THE PRESIDENT

SPRING IS IN THE AIR........ Those of a certain vintage might recall with much pleasure an old RadioFour show, actually starting in the days when it was still the HomeService, called 'The Countryside in Spring'; one of a quartet of annual programmes evoking a rural soundscape of the four seasons.

I was reminded of it when I looked out just now on the 'rec' which, at this particular time of the year, appeared rather bleaker and actually more wintery than usual thanks, if that's the right word, to the latest savagery inflicted on the trees to the south of the ground. A combination of yet more pruning of the existing limes as well as the odd terminal hack, all done for the best possible reasons I am assured, have resulted in a slightly sad, albeit unrestricted, view of the pitch and pavilion from School Lane.

When on-field battle recommences shortly, I rather fear that over-the-hedge ball retrieval will be seriously magnified without now much natural obstruction. However, the Parish Council has informed us that there is to be planting of new Limes on the roadside edge near the Pavilion, so perhaps that's better than nothing!

As 'Play!' is now imminent, I am also delighted to report some very welcome additions to the club's support network. In the last newsletter we reported Clive Innocent¹s passing, but thename Innocent will, happily, remain on the fixture card as his widow Christine has agreed to become an Honorary Life Vice President in his stead. Their lovely house, Green Gates, overlooks the field so we look forward to Christine enjoying the odd hour in our company just as Clive used to, with equal enthusiasm.

There is also excellent news that the Robinsons, Brian and Penny, have accepted a club invitation to become Hon. Life Veeps, a small 'thank you' from us for their years of support for LMCC on and off the field.We hardly need reminding of Brian's playing prowess - since 1997 for LMCC, a guileful bowler, dogged batsman and surprisingly agile gully fielder - because he finally bowed out of active duty only recently at an even more advanced age than myself. His all-round skills continue to be missed as do the regular appearances of the ever-cheerful Penny on the periphery. Let's hope that this 'elevation' might contrive to lure them back to Little Marlow from time to time.

To the ranks of Vice-Presidency, a big 'shout out' for Steve Goss, aka 'Jack¹s dad', a keensupporter of the club ever since his boy was prominent in the earliest intake of our Colts Academy before eventually graduating to be, these days, our First XI opening 'quick'; and to James Wilkie, who, with his wife Sally, is already actively involved in many different aspects of Little Marlow village life

And finally, belatedly it has to be said, deserved Veepdom for David 'Deadshot' Stoolman, ex-player after years of successful, often spectacular, batsmanship but also crucially,long-time Fixtures Secretary whose tireless efforts have considerably improved our range of opposition, particularly on 'friendly' Sundays.

Meantime, Spring has sprung.

PLAYER PROFILE – COLIN McCREA

Colin joined Little Marlow when he and his family moved into the area a couple of years ago. He quickly became a key member of the Saturday 2nd X1 league team, noted for his idiosyncratic batting style and pacy running between the wickets.

PLEASE COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR EARLY LIFE?

I was born in Ireland on the 3rd October 1955 and attended Coleraine Academical Institution before going on to Worcester College of HE and Sheffield University in England.

HOW HAVE YOU EARN ED YOUR LIVING?

Before going into Maths teaching I was a trainee auditor for 3 years. I got out before they got me out! I've taught at various schools, including Stowe for 12 years and in Wolverhampton for 9.

ANY CRICKETING HISTORYIN YOUR FAMILY ?

I was named after Colin Cowdrey!

HOW DID YOU COME TO JOIN LITTLE MARLOW?

Having 2 teenage sons we decided to join a village club where we could sometimes play together rather than a “big” club like Wycombe where we would probably not. LMCC was the closest to me so I checked it out one Sunday and was relieved to find other equally immobile, blind and decrepit players on the pitch! I also discovered that they indulged in the most important aspect of cricket- going to the pub afterwards!

WHERE DID YOU PLAY BEFORE JOINING US?

I played at boarding school in Coleraine. At home, the nearest pitch to me in Donegal was about 20 miles away so I would thumb a lift there and back every Saturday. Our home pitch

doubled up as a sheep field. Half an hour before we started we would chase off the sheep (the square was fenced off) from the outfield. The other quirky thing was that one side of the outfield was significantly lower than the square. When fielding on that boundary you couldn’t see the lower half of the people on the strip!

I played league cricket in London, then four seasons mostly in the 1st XI at university. After that my teaching career tended to mean that I was umpiring cricket matches on Saturdays so, when available, I played for various clubs local to where I was working. Probably the most consistent occurrence throughout this time was my tendency to run out the captain in my first innings with him. They learned to trust my call and not hesitate from then on! (Ged, consider yourself lucky).

PLEASE WOULD YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF YOUR MOST MEMORABLE CRICKETING PERFORMANCES AND EXPERIENCES?

The day in Donegal I batted through the innings for about 40 on a wicket where the ball did everything but go straight!

Or perhaps the day I opened at university against Richard Ellison who went on to open the bowling for England a couple of years later. I made about 20 so was quite happy.I did once average 249 during July for one club. The once out was run out!

Those were the days when I could see the ball properly so I could bat for ages (very slowly) and catch things as well.

WHAT ARE YOUR INTERESTS OTHER THAN CRICKET?

I played 1st XV rugby for 4 years at university and once I had to retire I took up hockey, which I still play. I watch most sports except the dogs and horses. I have coached and umpired cricket, rugby and hockey for years. I enjoy visiting museums, lying on the beach, and even teaching maths!

HOW HAS THE GAME CHANGED FOR THE BETTER OR WORSE DURING YOUR TIME AS A PLAYER?

I do like the idea of greater protection for players, both in terms of headgear and also the number of overs a youngster can bowl. I think the game has become too slow. It takes too long to bowl overs. In our league 45 overs are often taking more than 3 hours which is silly. At Stowe in the house matches I would tell the captain bowling first that his team would only receive the number of overs he had bowled in 70 mins, although he would still have to bowl all 20. It never failed to ensure that there was no wasting of time. I’d like to see a run penalty in our league for slow play. I love playing but finishing at nearly 9 on a couple of occasions is a bit OTT.

ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

If only I still had the eyesight of me at 18. Athleticism and good eyesight are wasted on the young!

The most frustrating thing I have found in my coaching and playing careers is the number of players who are scared to run quick singles. When in Wolverhampton, I got dragged out to play - not having done so for a couple of years - and ended up opening with one of the lads I taught. For the first ten overs I shocked him by what I was calling and running, but after another ten I had managed to convince him that almost anything was runnable if you called and went immediately.

VERNON BLUNT

R.A.F. Officer, Businessman, Author, Conman, Convict and …... Little Marlow Cricketer.

When I began to research our club's history several years ago little did I realize what a absorbing, time-consuming and, indeed, addictive process it was to become. Countless hours were spent trawling through microfilmed records of the local press, sometimes with little to show for it, sometimes a great deal and, just occasionally, one of those eureka moments. It sounds daft, I know, but I can still remember scrolling on to yet another page and almost shouting out in triumph and disbelief as a hitherto unknown photograph of Little Marlow cricketers from the 1930s appeared before me. They were lined up alongside members of the Lord's Staff team, including a young Bill Edrich, against whom they'd recorded a famous victory in August 1937. A wonderful report described the occasion, which had been organized by Little Marlow and Bourne End's Vernon Blunt.

Vernon Blunt is on the extreme right of the middle row, sporting a hooped cap – his daughter thinks it was his Yorkshire Gentlemen's.

The late John Lunnon, a former Well End farmer, was able to identify several of the village players, including Blunt, whom he described as a handsome, colourful character who was very much a ladies man. He played for the club as an all-rounder from 1936 to 1939, making many telling contributions, including a vital 37 as an opener in this Lord's Staff encounter.

Other than finding out the dates of his birth and death I left it there until deciding he might be worth further investigation for the purposes of this newsletter. It soon became clear that Blunt had lived a varied, fascinating, controversial, complex and, above all, mysterious life.

Sorting fact from fiction has been extremely difficult as he could be more than liberal with the truth about his achievements. Publisher and author Anthony Blond, who worked for Blunt in the late 1940s, beautifully described him as 'not so much a self-made man as a self-invented one'. He certainly attracted diverse opinions on his personality, from 'loveable rogue' to 'thoroughly unpleasant conman'.

Born in Holbeck, near Leeds, on the 3rd September 1900 Vernon Egerton Rowland Blunt was the first child for bricklayer Harry and his wife Annie. Vernon's daughter, Dawn Mason, to whom I am indebted for much information about his early life, told me that when her father was three his family moved to Cape Town, where Harry was employed overseeing the building of brick culverts and bridges for the railway. After four very happy years there a homesick Annie took Vernon, together with his brother, John, and sister, Veronica, back to Holbeck. Harry followed some time later. A fourth child, Dorothy, was born but soon after that Harry joined his brother and family who were builders in Cape Cod, America. He did not return until the late 1920s, after which he ceased to support his wife and children.

In later life Blunt often often sported an Old Etonian tie, which is where the first anomaly comes in. He actually attended St Luke's School before going on to Cockburn High at the age of thirteen. The incumbent at St Mark's Church, where Blunt was a choirboy, helped finance his fees.

In August 1918, before hearing his final exam results and subsequently receiving an offer of a place at Leeds University, Blunt enrolled in the Royal Air Force. His service record states that he was 5'11” tall with a 34” chest, light brown hair, grey eyes and a medium complexion. Mrs Mason told me that, after basic training, he was sent to Filton for flying lessons, which he confessed terrified him. She tells a lovely story, true or not, that he was in the air when news of the armistice was announced and he landed on a deserted airfield as everyone had gone off to celebrate! The National Roll Of The Great War says that, following a period of training, Blunt was retained on important Blunt (back) with his mother and siblings c1910 duties at various aerodromes. Althoughunable to obtain his transfer overseas, he nevertheless rendered valuable services until his demobilization in 1919. A couple of years later he was gazetted 2nd Lt, an honorary commission backdated to to the day of his departure.

Fact and fiction again become blurred when it comes to Blunt's time at university. Mrs Mason, whom I've no doubt has given me an honest account, albeit one presumably recounted by her father, says there was a scheme after the war to help young officers finishtheir interrupted education. Being asked if he wanted to read analytical chemistry with an£80 per annum studentship at Leeds, Blunt said he wanted to go to Cambridge to read law.

His CO said “And so you bloody well shall. I am a Cantab and I will recommend you.” As a result Blunt was offered a place but had to apply for a grant, which he was fortunate enough to receive. This amounted to £150 per annum and was generously topped up to the necessary £200 by the organist of the church in whose choir he sang.

Mrs Mason goes on 'so off he went to Trinity Hall, to share rooms for the first term with J.B. Priestley. Pop, coming from his working class background, was overawed and completely dazzled by Cambridge in the 1920s. He played cricket, football and the piano and rowed. Priestley, who was older and had fought in the trenches, told him off for wasting his time instead of 'learning your trade'. Pop continued to be dazzled and began to hover round the fringes of wealthier undergraduates, no doubt helped by his good looks. He graduated with a third, then took the bar exams but could not afford to go to the bar as he needed to support himself'.

All this makes a good yarn, and Priestley was certainly at Cambridge during that period. However, Jennifer Hayward, from the university's Office Of External Affairs And Communications, told me they had no record of any graduate by the name of Vernon Egerton Rowland Blunt.

During the '20s and 30's Blunt worked as a 'businessman', journalist and/or salesman; sometimes appearing to select his job description for various travel documents on a whim. In 1927 he was employed by Leeds-Bradford radio to broadcast daily accounts of play in Yorkshire's County Championship matches. In 1931 he presented a 20 minutes programme on 'Arctic Exploration'.

Blunt moved from Leeds to London at about this time, before buying a house called St Raphael, on Bourne End's Abney Court Drive, which he shared with his mother. It was then, of course, that he began to play for Little Marlow and Bourne End. A MCC member, he also appeared in several marquee games for them, including 1938 matches at Lord's against the Club Cricket Conference and Indian Gymkhana. Team members included former Middlesex and England player Nigel Haig and renowned cricket journalist Jim Swanton.

Having retained a strong interest in aviation Blunt joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1938. He was called to the colours a year later and posted to Fighter Command Headquarters, Intelligence. From there he passed on to the R.A.F. College. For two years he was engaged in administration, as Squadron Commander and Adjutant of the R.A.F. School of Administration. Service in the Air Ministry followed, in the department charged with the drafting of communiques.

Blunt's job with the Air Ministry ended after he wrote a book entitled 'The Use Of Air Power'. Having completed it in the winter of 1941, he sought permission to have it published. Authority was withheld, on the ground that its contents were 'too controversial,and too critical of Air Ministry policy, strategy and tactics'. Determined that his views be known, Blunt therefore obtained leave to resign his commission. Having been permitted to do so, with the privilege of retaining his rank of Flight-Lieutenant, he was able to publish his work in 1942. The 'notes on the author' include Blunt's claim to have graduated 'with honours' from Cambridge. Two further volumes followed, both co-written with a Major Alois Sitek – 'The Flying Soldier: The Air Requirements of Airborne Forces' and a companion called 'Gliding and Soaring', both published in 1944.

Blunt's love for gliding was further evidenced when, that same year, he became the proprietor of 'Sailplane and Glider' magazine. This, together with Blunt's other affairs, was run from an office behind The Strand, which is where Blond was employed as 'acting editor'. He devoted a chapter in his book 'Jew Made In England' to the experience, writing that he found Blunt '…...an unlikely man.....an imposing figure, a cross between Humpty Dumpty and a brigadier.....He always wore a dark-blue pinstriped suit, waistcoat with a gold fob, a red carnation and a trilby, and carried an umbrella......The whole was topped-up with a bristly white moustache, a ruddy complexion and blue eyes....With his sonorous voice, he was the picture of a well-established businessman in the lucrative and then fashionable import-export trade....He was not the blimp he looked, being affable, witty, courteous and not at all well-bred'.

The Photograph of Blunt printed in his 1942 book 'The Use Of Air Power'

Although the 'company' masqueraded as Blunt and Partners, Blond never saw any of the latter. There wasn't even a secretary, just a lot of telephones. Aside from producing 'Sailplane and Glider', Blunt was in the business of importing scrap metal, a potentially lucrative trade given the amount of military debris scattered around Europe and North Africa. However, he was seldom able to close a deal, instead having to rely upon his third interest, that of selling china in the East End through his friend Colonel Karnibad. Blond writes that transactions for this always seemed to occur in the dead of night.

Despite the repeated business failures and almost complete lack of money, Blond came to admire his employer and enjoy his make-believe persona and tall story telling, which apparently included details of his time at Balliol College, Oxford. However, this endearment was certainly not universal. Walter Khan, who acquired 'Sailplane and Glider' in the 1950s, considered Blunt to be a smooth, fast-talking operator who ran a campaign against the UK gliding establishment that made him its number one enemy. He became known by the less than flattering nickname 'Vermin', and when things became too hot for him he suddenly disappeared to the USA.

Whatever his faults, Blunt was certainly a charmer with the fairer sex. It's easy to imagine him playing the field, with considerable success thanks to his good looks and imaginative rhetoric. He married relatively late in life – aged 40 and to a beautiful woman named Catherine who was many years his junior. They had three children, Julian, Dawn and David. All appeared rosy in the garden, especially after one of Blunt's scrap-iron deals finally bore fruit. He made several thousand pounds of which, much later, he sent fifty to the seemingly infinitely patient Blond. However, his luck was soon to run out.

In 1953 Blunt and eight other men were convicted of conspiracy after a 41 days trial that was then the longest ever held at The Old Bailey. It concerned £70,000 worth of pottery, destined for export but instead made available on the home market in contravention of a Board of Trade regulation. More than 150 witnesses gave evidence for the prosecution and the jury was shown hundreds of exhibits. Blunt, who'd elected to defend himself, was sentenced to two years imprisonment. Colonel Karnibad was acquitted.

Having served his time in Weymouth Blunt returned to business, becoming involved in the international oil trade. To date I've learnt little of this period of his life. He died in Herefordshire, aged 90.