Dimming of the Day

32 taken himself off to play for Northumberland. Despite this he was chosen again in 1914, winning another blue. He played on for a while after the war, captaining the university in 1919, then rather confusingly combining Northumberland with Somerset, but played no first-class cricket after 1922, becoming a golf-course architect. On another front, The Times reported on 6 May that Lord Selborne had moved the second reading of the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill in the House of Lords, and that the debate had been adjourned, which was basically a piece of blatant parliamentary manoeuvring to kick the Bill into the long grass. Once again as much attention was paid to the trial matches at the universities as to the county games, and The Times on 6 May listed those newly arrived from their public schools who would take part in the Freshmen’s trials at Cambridge. On 8 May The Times noticed Mr H.G.Wells’ new book The World Set Free – a book which opens with an atomic war set in 1956. Wells had by this time written many “scientific romances” of which 1908’s The War in the Air was going to be the closest to unpleasant reality, though to the Second World War rather than the First. It was all part of a general air of uneasiness. Aircraft were generally news as the technology was advancing. On 19 May the King and Queen visited the RFC at Aldershot and inspected 25 aircraft, one of them with a wireless installation. The RE1, built by the Royal Aircraft Factory, was commended for its stability, being steered by a single rudder rather than requiring the pilot to control turning and banking simultaneously. Most existing aircraft were unstable as well as hard to fly because in order to be light enough they were vulnerable in the wind. If that needed any proof, in the same month Mr Gustav Hamel (an Englishman, despite the name), the “foremost exponent in these islands of an art whose military consequence is continually increasing” was lost over the Channel. The next day it was rumoured that he had been picked up by a fishing boat and landed at South Shields, but, unfortunately, it was not true. The life of an airman, even in peacetime, was precarious, and while there was some muttering about foul play there was nothing much in it: he was flying a new aircraft and it was a risky business. Back to the cricket, and agreement had been reached for an Australian team to tour South Africa, leaving in November. On 7 May in the MCC v Nottinghamshire game, after G.M.Lee and W.W.Whysall, solid long-serving professionals both, had scored hundreds for the county, Fred Barratt of Nottinghamshire, 20 years old and making his first-class debut, took eight for 91 in the MCC first innings, leading the press to hail “a new fast bowler” who reminded one correspondent of Barnes and ‘five times yesterday he broke right across the wicket from leg apparently bowling the off-break action, but none of those magnificent balls got wickets, perhaps because it was too early in the season.’ Barratt Opening Moves