Cricket's Historians

260 The Booming Market for Cricket Books D.R.Jardine. Douglas, who was born in London in 1955, left school to join the theatre, appearing on the stage and on television. In 1980 he wrote a play based on the Bodyline series. This was broadcast on Radio 4; from this play stemmed his interest in Jardine’s life. The Family Fortune , published in 1978, told the story of a number of families who had produced several Sussex county cricketers. The author, Alan Hill, was residing in Sussex, having moved from his native Yorkshire, where he had worked as a sports journalist. Since 1980 he had written essays on specific cricketers for The Cricketer , but it was not until 1986 that Hill’s first single biographical book appeared. It featured Hedley Verity and Hill interviewed a number of Verity’s relatives. The book won The Cricket Society Literary Award. This proved the first of a number of biographies by the author – these were published regularly through the 1990s.