Famous Cricketers No 97 - Eddie Paynter

Foreword by Eric Midwinter We all had to do essential war work during the 1939-45 hostilities. A rising nine year old, my contribution to the war effort was to act as scoreboard operator for my father when, if liberated from his onerous fire service duties, he scored for Lady Kemsley’s Daily Dispatch War Fund XI, as it played local and augmented sides in the Manchester area, the proceeds going to the Red Cross and other war charities. Undeterred by my grandmother’s disapproving belief that the Nazis could be tackled without resort to profaning the Sabbath, off we went, my countenance wreathed in an expression of smug officiousness, as we were ushered, free of charge, into the ground. Thus, gratis, I beheld a sight that thousands would pay a fortune to enjoy – the diminutive maestro, Eddie Paynter, coolly whacking sixes into the tennis courts, each one excitedly recorded as I twirled the rollers and chinked the tins. A child of homely Oswaldtwistle, perhaps he found pyrotechnic inspiration from being born on Guy Fawkes Day. More likely, he was motivated by the impatience that accrued from the long wait for his stalwart predecessors in the Lancashire batting order to fade away – and maybe from some vague premonition that his career would then be grievously curtailed by war. He crushed a mighty county and country career into a few crowded years. He was that consummate rarity: the attacking player who played long innings, while, fleet-footed and nimble, he joined and adorned a lengthy series of brilliant Lancashire cover points from Vernon Royle to Graeme Fowler. A ferocious driver, a batsman who hooked seemingly with both feet off the ground or swept so fiercely that his pad knee roll always looked tarnished, and one who indulged in what he termed ‘me fancy cuts’, he was rightly regarded with affection as well as esteem. Not least was this so among his team-mates, for he was known to enliven the gloomy dead of night moments on Crewe Station, waiting for yet another delayed connection, with handstands and other circus-like acrobatics. It came as a shock to discover that these same colleagues called him Ted. ‘Ted Paynter’ – it sounded like one of those sleek-haired dance band leaders or earnest trade union officials of the era; and I almost missed a Wisden profile of him because it was headed ‘Edward Paynter’. No, he was, and eternally, Eddie Paynter, even unto another Sunday afternoon some thirty years later, this time at Southport, where some sort of necessary testimonial game had been organised for him. There he was, wearing something that looked like carpet slippers, standing alert and bright eyed at first slip. Competent judges always spoke of his supreme visual acuity, which enabled him, if I may immodestly self-quote, ‘to play late to the point of gross unpunctuality’. It is good to see him honoured in this fine series – and good that the honour should be done by Kit Bartlett, for long its unassuming and tolerant yet imaginative and efficacious editor. Eddie Paynter may be one of the last ‘Famous Cricketers’. Along with Learie Constantine and George Duckworth, among others, he was one of my first and abiding famous cricketers. 3