Famous Cricketers No 82 - H.E. 'Tom' Dollery

keeping wicket, not just in emergency, but for most of that season. He made such a good job of it that the Committee asked him to carry on, but the arrival of Dick Spooner happily killed that idea off. As a man, Tom Dollery was rather diffident and shy and was a very private person even to his friends, very much his own man, but in company he was always extremely civil and well mannered. His natural reserve was often mistaken for off-handedness or even rudeness to those who didn’t know him, and it would be true to say that there were those who were offended by this; he didn’t suffer fools gladly for instance. But to his friends he was extremely loyal, never broke his word, and never changed his mind over a decision once he had made his mind up. Rather taciturn, he nevertheless possessed a dry sense of humour, and was given to listening to a discussion, weighing up the pros and cons then chiming in with a few telling words that wound up the argument. A handsome man of just under six feet, sturdily built and weighing around thirteen stones in his prime, he was very attractive to the opposite sex, (“but he never escaped”, his wife Jeanne laughingly told me recently). He liked a beer, particularly lager, didn’t smoke, (unusual for his generation), was passionate about horse racing and was always immaculately dressed, on and off the field, (he seldom wore a cap when playing though). He always looked the part on the cricket field; there was a touch of the patrician about him, his very demeanour demanding respect. On the other hand, he was one of those players like Denis Compton who never bothered particularly with his own bat, and would look around the dressing room and pick out one he fancied before going out to the middle. Ray Hitchcock also said that Dollery’s corner of the dressing room would always be a mess with his kit strewn everywhere. He was also notorious for his manic driving and his sense of direction was non-existent, so much so that even his close friends were reluctant to travel with him. Away from cricket, his first job had been as Welfare Officer with Accles and Pollock, a prominent Black Country tube manufacturer in 1939. After the war he tried his hand in a sports goods shop venture with his friend Eric Hollies, (they took over the lease of Eric’s father’s plumbers supply shop in Old Hill). From the mid Fifties he went into pub management, and proved extremely successful in this role. He ran “The White Horse” at Curdworth, near Coleshill from ’54 to ’56, “The Falcon” at Haseley, near Warwick from ’57 to ’74 and “The Westley Arms” at Acocks Green in Birmingham from ’74 to ’78. He then took over the Stewardship of Edgbaston Golf Club until he finally retired in 1984, where his wife Jeanne still resides to this day. He could be a bit fussy whom he let into his pubs, on one famous occasion back in the 1970s he threw our esteemed Joint Founder and book reviewer, Rob Brooke, out of “The Falcon” because he didn’t like the length of his hair! His association with his beloved Warwickshire carried on until the day he died. He was Head Coach until 1970, on the Committee from 1964 to 1972, helped form the Warwickshire Old Cricketers Association and was eventually elected an Honorary Life Member of the Club. He also captained the Minor Counties and Second XIs in the late Fifties, leading Warwickshire to the Minor Counties Championship in 1959. There was a period in the Seventies when he and Hollies fell out with the new Committee and they were rarely seen at Edgbaston, but at “Tiger” Smith’s funeral in 1979 they “buried the hatchet” and were back in the fold once more. Eric Hollies was one of Tom’s best friends, born out of mutual respect for each other’s cricket, and for many years they toured the Midlands giving slide shows and lectures on cricket in their spare time. He had written articles for various local sports papers over the years, and when he retired he set down his thoughts on the game, and captaincy in particular in a book “Professional Captain”, published by Stanley Paul. He wrote it all himself, Jeanne typed it up and W.E. Hall of “The Birmingham Post” edited it. It was well received as it wasn’t a conventional “pot boiler” autobiography, but a book full of his sound opinions on the various aspects of the game, captaincy and strategy in particular. The respect that he was held in at the highest levels was reflected in his appointment as one of the England Test Selectors. He had been approached while still a player, but had turned it down due to his 10