Hearne was a cousin of JT, an impeccable and stylish right-hand batsman who demonstrated artistry in placing the ball and combined this with a sound defence. Ill health turned him into a more cautious batsman than he might have been but he bowled leg breaks and googlies off a very short run with sufficient success to record five doubles of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets. His great friend Elias Hendren – Patsy because of his Irish ancestry – was a short and stocky right-hand batsman who drove and cut powerfully and showed great courage in hooking fast bowling. They began their partnership on Whit Monday, Hearne ending the day on 53 and Hendren 62. Alec Kennedy toiled away for 55 overs, emerging from the carnage with seven for 202, but it was Middlesex’s match. Hampshire regained some self-respect at Southampton, Mead, Brown and Hill getting into the nineties as the home side established a first-innings lead of 151. Harry Lee, one of three cricketing brothers (Frank and Jack each played for Middlesex and Somerset) posted an unbeaten hundred as the game meandered to a draw. In the West Country Somerset defeated Gloucestershire at Taunton during Whitsun, albeit not without baffling some absent followers. The Rippon twins, Sydney and Dudley, both played for the county with reasonable success as solid openers, although Dudley finished soon after the war because of ill health. Sydney was on sick leave from the Civil Service, where he was employed by the Inland Revenue, and consequently was unavailable for selection – or, at least, he should have been. When a player withdrew, he was replaced by one S Trimmell, who made 92 and 58 not out. People following the match in the newspapers were baffled because nobody seemed to have heard of Trimmell. The Western Daily Press correspondent was not fooled: “S Trimmell, who is far better known facially to Somerset cricketers and supporters than he is to the general public, played in capital style. Although his name is new, he is by no means a stranger to county cricket.” Trimmel was none other than Sydney Rippon, as his son the Rt Hon Geoffrey Rippon QC, MP explained to David Foot: “The fact is that my father was on sick leave from the Civil Service at the time and shouldn’t have been playing. He was needed by the county, so he appeared on the scorecard and in the press under his grandmother’s name. Everyone treated it as a huge joke when it emerged what had happened. I suppose today there’d be an absolute furore.” The Bristol return was drawn while Leicestershire, boosted by hundreds from Aubrey Sharp and Arthur Mounteney, drew with Northamptonshire at the County Ground. The visiting batsmen piled up the runs when the teams reconvened at Aylestone Road, Hawtin making 129 not out in a total of 407 for five declared, although Leicestershire survived. Rawlins Hawtin, a sound right-hand batsman, could find time for only 85 first-class matches between 1908 and 1930, mainly because of business commitments, but, as a staunch committee member, he more or less kept the club going single-handedly during the Second World War. Kent’s matches against Essex produced plenty of runs: two hundreds for Perrin and one for Jack Russell at Leyton and another for Russell and an undefeated 172 for Wally Hardinge, who carried his bat in the face of some fine seam bowling from Douglas at Canterbury. The matches, like so many in 1919, were drawn. Sussex, the odd one out among the counties, met the Australian Imperial Forces at Hove, coming close to victory at Whitsuntide but suffering a beating in August, largely as a result of the bowling of Gregory and Collins. With the Championship restored to three day matches in 1920 the holiday fixtures approached perpetuity. Nottinghamshire-Surrey, Lancashire-Yorkshire, Cornerstones of the Season 61