The Summer Field

126 within its limits’. Perhaps, like much in life, we can only appreciate good captaincy when we see unmerited, name-only captaincy. R.D.Lemon, the Chief Constable of East Riding, was outwardly the natural and successful captain of his headquarters divisional team in the constabulary’s divisional league, and of the force-wide team that played friendlies with other police, and civilians, and in 1940 local military units. On Monday, July 8, 1940, for instance, Superintendent Cooke at Beverley wrote to Lemon that the town’s specials were playing the regular police that Thursday evening: ‘I know the special constables would be very pleased to see you captaining the team [of regulars] and I respectfully ask if you could see your way clear to do this.’ Lemon’s name was indeed first on the team list, then Cooke’s, then (in order of rank) an inspector, three sergeants and the rest constables. As police forces were then so military in discipline, and run strictly by rank, inviting the chief, in writing, to be captain might have been the only way to be sure of permission to play. As a sign of how formal policing was, and how seriously Lemon took his cricket, his deputy Superintendant. Huddleston wrote on May 2, 1940, asking Lemon if he would ‘find it convenient’ to captain the HQ division that season. Lemon noted on the letter, ‘I shall be very pleased to do this’. Should we be surprised that Lemon’s team won nine and lost one, and won the league? Perhaps Lemon played on merit, and perhaps he took five wickets for four against Driffield division in September 1940 on merit. Or perhaps his Driffield men felt it safest not to anger their chief by swotting him for runs. The records do not say. They do show that if Lemon could not make the constabulary team, the vice-captain and kit-man, Constable J.R.Stork, was captain instead. A team needed captaincy; it could do without any particular captain. Captaincy and Command