Dimming of the Day

20 The Making of the Myth of a Golden Age the poorer counties, if there was a shortfall at the end of the year, there might be an aristocratic patron who would put his hand in his pocket. When Hampshire played at Bournemouth there would be theatrical performances put on in aid of the county’s funds. And the poorer counties could still only afford to employ a few professionals in any case and those would be bowlers because bowlers could service the members in the nets. Local town clubs were run on the same model. Altham and Swanton’s A History of Cricket 8 which was published in 1938, having originally been written by H.S.Altham as a series of articles in The Cricketer and published in book form in 1926, simply does not mention the war, moving from chapters ending in 1914 to those beginning in 1919 or 1920. Not even the loss of life among public schools cricketers was mentioned. Perhaps it was too raw a subject for the history of the game, although when the two volume edition appeared in 1962 Swanton began the second volume with a brief chapter entitled Counting the Cost. Eric Parker, writing The History of Cricket for the Lonsdale Library 9 (undated but from internal evidence 1949) does refer to the war, but the way the book is written it is not so much a general history as split into sections on counties, Eton v Harrow, and so on. An earlier edition had contained pieces from various cricketers and was entitled The Game of Cricket . Parker had written a biography of H.V.Hesketh Prichard which included his experiences in the trenches, so knew something about the reality of war. However, in referring to the 1914 Eton v Harrow match he wrote England was at war with the enemy of all that the schools of England stand for. E.W.Hornung, in a poem, “Lord’s Leave 1915”, has told something of what lies beyond the turnstiles of St.John’s Wood. Two stanzas out of nine hold the same meaning today as when they were written thirty years ago Cricket? ‘Tis Sanskrit to the super-Hun Cheap cross between Caligula and Cassius To whom speech, prayer and warfare are all one Equally gaseous! Playing a game’s beyond him and his hordes: Theirs but to play the snake or wolf or vulture: Better one sporting lesson learnt at Lord’s Than all their Kultur Hornung was writing shortly after the Second World War, but it still reads very harshly. Hornung mentions that R.St.L.Fowler and the Hon J.N.Manners of Eton died in the war, but it is not part of his history to discuss 1914. If we turn again to the iconoclastic Major Rowland Bowen 10 , writing in 8 H.S.Altham & E.W.Swanton, A History of Cricket , George Allen & Unwin, 1938 9 Eric Parker, The History of Cricket , Lonsdale Library, Vol XXX, 10 Rowland Bowen ibid