Dimming of the Day

42 June 1914 letter appeared next to the account of Kent being bowled out for 86 by Northamptonshire (who then replied with 141 all out by the close). William Wells, professional and fast-medium bowler, took seven for 39: he was to carry on playing for Northants until 1926. Kent recovered from this to win by a substantial margin, Colin Blythe taking seven for 15 to bowl out Northants for 57 in their second innings. C.B.Fry turned out for Hampshire in his first game for two years, scoring 41 against Gloucestershire; in the second innings he made 112. Equal prominence in The Times was given to Eton College v Eton Ramblers – the Ramblers scored 493 but were unable quite to force victory. Kenneth Nicholl, who had captained the Eton XI in 1903, scored a century as did G.H.G.M.Cartwright, later President of the Ramblers until his death in 1976. Lancashire were playing Nottinghamshire without James Tyldesley who was ‘required by his local club for the weekend’ – employed as a professional at a Lancashire League club: he was certainly playing for Ramsbottom in 1915. Hubert Garrett was making his only first-class appearance of the season for MCC against Cambridge University with no particular success, after turning out for Somerset throughout July 1913. Australian-born, he was to die at Gallipoli. On 8 June the whole front page of The Times was taken up by an advertisement for W.Vernon & Sons ‘Millennium’ flour. Indeed the whole issue seems to have been about food and drink with many advertisers taking full pages. It was a surprise to come across a reference to ’”the curd now fashionable as yagourt’”. When you finally come to the cricket scores on page 58, we see that Mr J.S.F.Morrison had scored 75 and 233* for Cambridge University against MCC. So perhaps that is why he was forgiven for having gone off to play for Northumberland the previous year. The innings also hoisted him into the top ten in the national batting averages, now headed by Frank Foster after his triple century. The bowling averages were now led by Bill Fairservice of Kent (who played until 1921 and then for a few years for Northumberland), and Middlesex, with four wins in five matches, topped the early Championship table. On 9 June it was reported that M Ribot had agreed to try to form a government in France. He indeed formed a ministry, but it lasted only four days. There were worries about Mexico and in the Balkans where Greece was proposing to buy battleships. Greece and the Ottoman Empire were conducting their own mini-Dreadnought contest, some of it with other people’s cast-offs. The following day The Times reported what a very sound government M Ribot had put together. There was a general strike in Rome. There was a grand state ball at Buckingham Palace, with a full list of those attending, including substantial numbers of minor German royalty as well as all the