the cricket followers’ very own day, when out comes the new summer suit and the new cloth cap pulled well down over the eyes to shade the sun. In most buttonholes is a carnation or rose or sweetpea and all carry a box of sandwiches and a bottle of beer. For the ladies it is a flask of tea, for the youngsters it is a lemonade.” It was a similar story in other competitions. The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Border League’s Bayley Cup Final was played on August Bank Holiday Monday, continuing throughout the war. Big crowds attended - 1941 at Heanor for example, start 2.30pm, admission 7d - and Reg Simpson said the league laid the foundations of the mental toughness required to make centuries at Test match level. As a teenager, he made hundreds of runs for Notts City Police before beginning his Nottinghamshire career but two run outs taught him valuable lessons, one in a league game while gardening and the other in the 1937 cup final while backing up at the non-striker’s end. It is customary to issue a warning first but the bowler, Frank ‘Tinny’ Riley, did not do so. “I remember the Police team was a bit incensed about this,” Simpson said. “I hadn’t strayed very far at all but Tinny was a hard competitor and, of course, he was within his rights. Both of the run out incidents taught me lessons I never forgot. They probably stood me in good stead when we met the Australians years later.” The Bayley Cup finals were played to a finish, a system which could cause problems if the weather was unkind. Such an occasion, in 1954, was to become the catalyst for change. The game began on August Bank Holiday Monday and finished shortly before 9pm on Wednesday. Play did not start on Monday until 3.15pm, Openwoodgate closing at 340 for six. There was no play on Tuesday evening and when the match resumed on Wednesday evening, the innings ended at 372, Tommy Tomlinson making 172. Their opponents, Jacksdale, were all out for 144 (Tomlinson five for 49) and after two more matches had spanned 48 hours, over-limit finals were introduced in 1961. Midway through 1942, Ernest Bevin wrote to civic heads, including Alderman Tiptaft, the Mayor of Birmingham, asking for daylight entertainment to be provided for factory workers. The Mayor delegated the task to Councillor Reginald Ivor ‘Rusty’ Scorer, a 50-year-old businessman fromMoseley who had played occasionally for Warwickshire between 1921 and 1926. Lieut-Col Scorer, who served 16 years on the Rugby Union committee, was also running the Queensbury All Services Club in Hurst Street, Birmingham and was in the Home Guard. He set about tidying up the neglected Edgbaston ground with the intention of staging a festival of cricket as part of the holidays at home drive. The Birmingham Festival, which took place during the August Bank Holiday weeks from 1942 to 1945, was an unqualified success. Warwickshire and Worcestershire opened the 1942 event, followed by the Birmingham League against Coventry and District and Warwickshire (Wyatt 171 not out) against Civil Defence Services. The ground was lent free of charge; such players as Stewart Dempster, Frank Lee, Harold Gimblett and the Langridge brothers turned out – as did Scorer himself - and the festival raised £450 for the Lord Mayor’s War Relief Fund. There were prizes for the biggest hits and the best bowling and fielding performances and entertainment by the band of the 30th Warwickshire Home Guard. Poor weather failed to dampen enthusiasm during the 1943 festival, 20,000 people turning up over the four days, with the fund benefiting by £1,036. Wyatt, Wartime Holidays 127