Cricket's Historians

190 The World of Cricket Gloucestershire This yearbook is another Pepper production, but it is 52 pages longer than the Glamorgan book and costs only one shilling. The list of members and their addresses occupy 50 pages, but there is a comprehensive Record Section of 36 pages which had originally been compiled in the 1930s by D.C.Moore. No one is credited with updating the Section in 1961 – presumably it was done by the scorer? Hampshire Another handbook from the Pepper stable. In 1961, Desmond Eagar, though retired as County captain, was still the Club Secretary and, one assumes, the handbook’s editor. Unlike many of the other 1961 handbooks, Hampshire’s includes quite a number of articles by writers outside the county – Rowland Bowen, Gordon Ross, Diana Rait Kerr and Ron Roberts. There is no Record Section, but full First XI match scores and good, lengthy match reports. The price is two shillings and the number of pages 128. In 1968’s edition a Record Section by Roy Webber was introduced (culled from the 1950s county history – Webber had died in 1962). The Records had been updated by Norman Drake, a retired police officer, who was appointed county scorer in 1955 and remained in post until his death in January 1973 – aged 68. Apart from the records, the 1970 yearbook remained much as in 1961. Kent The famous Kent ‘Blue Book’, which had remained largely unchanged since its inception, changed in style but scarcely in content in 1947. The President’s Message states: ‘This year we are unable to follow our usual custom in publishing the Kent County Cricket Club “Blue Book”, but thanks to our editor Mr Armitage and the publishers, Messrs Geerings of Ashford, who have come to our help, we are presenting a record in a somewhat different form.’ However the format that was in use in 1961 was introduced in 1953, when, for example, a comprehensive Record Section of 27 pages was compiled by John F.Griffiths (see Chapter 9). The full scores for both First XI and Second XI matches were printed. There were articles by E.W.Swanton and H.W.Warner – in 1960 Warner had