draw in the 1914 Whitsun fixture at Hove. That took place early in June and by the time of the return at Canterbury war clouds were placing cricket in perspective. The heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated at Sarajevo on 28 June and a month later Austria declared war on Serbia. By noon on Bank Holiday Saturday 1 August Germany and Russia were at war. The Germans, who next declared war on France, demanded free passage through Belgium. The Belgians refused and this brought a change of mood in London. People had not wanted the country involved in a Continental war; indeed an antiwar demonstration was planned for Sunday in Trafalgar Square. After the news from Belgium, the demonstration faded away and on Sunday afternoon crowds in Downing Street, called for war. The next day, August Bank Holiday Monday, was, in most places, a beautiful, cloudless, summer’s day and cricket followers made their way to Old Trafford and The Oval, to Canterbury and Southampton, Edgbaston, Northampton, Derby and Bristol. On Tuesday morning the Germans crossed the Belgian border. The British Cabinet met at 11am and sent the Germans an ultimatum which would expire at midnight. At Derby, an army officer, Captain Richard Baggallay, led Derbyshire against Essex and was at the crease when a telegraph boy brought out a message ordering him to mobilise. “I showed the telegram to the Essex captain, JWHT Douglas, and we agreed that we must abandon the match unless it ended that day.” By 5.30pm Essex had completed an innings victory and at nine o’clock, the nation’s leaders assembled in the Cabinet Room. Midnight came and went and, with no word from Berlin, Great Britain was at war with Germany. Cricket continued. Yorkshire won at Old Trafford, the match ending early on Wednesday. There were close finishes at Bristol and Northampton, with narrow wins for the home teams and the games at The Oval and Worcester were draws. At Canterbury, Vine made 140 and Blythe took six for 107 in the Sussex first innings of 384. A declaration left Kent 130 minutes to make 172 and at 105 for four they needed 67 in an hour but although Seymour batted well they lost by 34 runs, George Cox taking six for 45. Kent gained an innings victory over Northamptonshire in the second Canterbury match but, shorn of most of its social functions, the Week was a financial disaster. Attendances were meagre and the Old Stagers’ performances and the two balls were cancelled. So the August Bank Holiday matches which began in the shadow of conflict ended with the nation at war. The season dragged on, until WG Grace published a letter in The Sportsman of 27 August urging closure. In England there would be no first-class cricket for four seasons. The game flourished in the leagues and there was an occasional holiday fixture: Hobbs making 126 for Army Service Corps at Catford on Whit Monday 1915, for example, and there was an England-Dominions fixture at The Oval in 1918. But for many – and these included 34 county cricketers – who never returned from the killing fields, 1914 was the last cricket they would ever see. RE Foster had already succumbed to diabetes in May 1914 and he was followed by WG and Victor Trumper the following year. Among the war dead were Kenneth Hutchings, Major Booth, WB Burns, the South African googly bowlers GC White and RO Schwarz and, at Ypres in November 1917, Colin Blythe. Some found solace in the memories of the holiday games, none more so than the Canterbury Weeks. Here a memorial to Blythe was unveiled in August 1919 End of the Golden Era 57