Dimming of the Day

August 1914 93 Warwickshire v Kent ended in two days with Warwickshire bowled out by Fielder and Woolley for 99. Yorkshire beat Gloucestershire by an innings and 227, Kilner going on to 169 of Yorkshire’s 405. Booth (twelve for 89) and Drake (eight for 81) bowled unchanged through both innings, dismissing Gloucestershire for 84 in the second innings. At Bournemouth Lancashire made 389 for a narrow first-innings lead, J.S.Heap 132 not out, his only first-class hundred in a career which lasted from 1903 to 1921. For Essex against Northamptonshire two amateurs made hundreds: C.D.McIver 118 and Geoffrey Davies 100 in his last game. After the game the Essex committee met in the pavilion and agreed that ‘Members of the Staff volunteering in the war should have their places kept open for them.’ This was not entirely a matter of doddery old buffers blithely sending young men to their deaths: three of the committee – Douglas, McIver and Charles Round – soon joined up and were commissioned in the Army. Round was the only son of the club’s founder James and captain of the 2 nd XI, although he played no more cricket in 1914. Away in Belgium, a 16-year-old boy called John Parr, who had falsified his age, had already become the first British soldier to be killed. War was casting an increasingly long shadow over the whole country, including its cricketers. Lord Kitchener had ‘practically’ got his first 100,000 men: but more were needed. On 28 August a new recruiting advertisement appeared. Kitchener was advertising for another 100,000 men – the age limit was now 35 but ex- soldiers up to 45 and some ex-NCOs up to 50 could apply. The minimum height was 5’3”, chest 34”. The Western Daily Press’s regular columnist ‘North Somerset’ chuntered that last Saturday he was in the garden and ‘what did I see but a huge brake laden with strong young men in flannels and their friends all come out into the country to play a return cricket match and thus induce a similar number of country chaps to waste half a day that could well have been spent in helping the old folk with their gardens at home.’ The Times war update started, Our thoughts are with our gallant Army. If we do not at all discuss its fortunes and speculate upon its future it is because its deeds and its sufferings are not revealed to us. We are kept completely in the dark regarding the recent action at Mons. The Times was especially peeved because other countries seemed much more ready to say what was going on, while there was not even any official announcement about what had happened since the apparently orderly retreat from Mons, and no indication of casualties. Questions were asked in the House of Commons and batted away. But if people could not be trusted with the truth they were going to listen to rumour, and with wounded soldiers returning they could hardly be silenced. The paper also editorialised on the dropping of bombs on Antwerp by a Zeppelin: a new horror of war. Was it a breach of the Hague Convention?