The Summer Field

9 Chimneys and Fields Derbyshire beat Leicestershire by an innings at Derby in July 1846, and a Mr Fulshaw took eleven wickets, the Derby Mercury noted that such ‘old- fashioned straight bowling … ought to have been played. Alas! It is easier to talk against it than to play it. In the tent were many who could play it rightly well.’ And know-alls and mockery easily went together, as at Bretby Park, the south Derbyshire home of Lord Chesterfield, in July 1864. When a ‘twisting sparkler’ from Mr Potts bowled a Burton-on-Trent batsman, A.L.Phillips, ‘it caused that gentleman to survey for some moments his shivered timbers in an attitude of amazement until he was aroused from his reverie by the loud laughter of his friends.’ Men did bleed like Mr Pips. In 1864, when Penzance were trying to take the last Camborne wicket before the 7pm close, a fielder, Paynter, ‘in endeavouring to stop a ball thrown at the wicket received an ugly rap on his nose which bled profusely. Nothing daunted he bowled his over and shortly afterwards had the pleasure of seeing the last man of the Camborne team beautifully caught by point.’ And as Mr Pips understood, a cricket field was one of the few places where men could show off in an age of plain clothes in few colours. Ham Hill cricket club in deep south Somerset around 1830 expected its members to play in a ‘Flannel Jacket edged with purple’ (the Free Press satirist even caught the capital letters properly). Usually in match reports, clothing was so taken for granted that it was not worth spelling out. Exceptions were during the first Torquay August ‘week’ in 1866, when rain made the players exchange ‘flannel pants, parti- coloured vests and dainty caps’ for capes and coats; and in the first ‘week’, in 1864, when a reporter, straining to impress, described ‘cricketers in all sorts of guises, picturesque as well as outré were everywhere to be seen, some actively engaged in the pending game’. Torquay and other seaside resorts were growing as fast as any factory town, and using cricket to attract holiday-makers. If the true home of cricket was in the countryside, some there disapproved. In a column in the Western Daily Press in August 1914, the correspondent known only as ‘North Somerset’ grumbled: ‘…. what did I see but a huge brake laden with strong young men in flannels and their friends all come out into the country to play a return cricket match and thus induce a similar number of country chaps to waste half a day that could well have been spent in helping the old folk with their gardens at home.’ The diary of Somerset farmer’s son, W.P.Hayter, shows that cricket had to wait as men did the regular tasks of milking, killing rats, catching eels, making thatch in the yard, ploughing, weeding the wheat, making cider, cutting nettles and trimming hedges – to take only May 1894. Hayter, of Compton, between Yeovil and Castle Cary, was practising, playing on Saturdays, and looking after the pitch from late April. On May 5 for instance he put up a chain to keep cows off. In his diary for June to August he hardly mentioned cricket, until he played again in mid-September, after the harvest. A farmer’s son put in long hours – Hayter usually rose by 5.30am – and found time for reflection. Hayter fished; and at least sometimes practised his violin before breakfast. Other villagers chose