establishment of the West Country derby between Gloucestershire and Somerset. It was to prove a happy association for two struggling counties with a large amateur contingent descending on the games. Somerset had eight and Gloucestershire four at Whit in 1914 and that summer found both clubs battling to avoid the wooden spoon. Gloucestershire suffered this fate, despite a one-wicket victory over their rivals in a Bristol game dominated by the left-arm spin of Dennett and Somerset’s Jack White. Jessop soon made an impact: 103 in 75 minutes at Bristol in August 1910 and an undefeated 81 to bring Gloucestershire a five-wicket victory at Taunton over the 1911 Whit period. And Charlie Parker gave a forewarning of things to come with a match analysis of 12-144 at Bristol in the following August. Parker’s great days of devastation with his left-arm spin lay a decade hence but batsmen took due note. As for Sussex they seldom found the subsequent holiday games of that period enjoyable. A mix of fixtures with Kent, Hampshire, Middlesex and then Kent again brought only three victories in 18 matches. There was victory by an innings at Southampton in the Whitsuntide game in 1910 and Ranjitsinhji returned to first-class cricket, each time after a four-year absence, in 1908 and 1912. But Sussex ended the Golden Age on a high note with a 34-run victory over Kent at Canterbury in 1914. WG in Holiday Mood 42