Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

109 the artisan and suburban classes touched closest to a social union. It was the culmination of a hundred years of this process. The word ‘middlebrow’ had been coined by the magazine Punch in 1910 and, apposite as it already then was, it was in the 1940s decade that the word most closely defined the habits and moods of the British public. The American academic Martin Reiner wrote ‘the English way of reconciling respect for individual liberty with a very high degree of public order and cooperation was the envy of the world’. 7 A detailed disquisition on the 1940s is a necessary preliminary to an account of cricket’s fortunes in that important decade, for it is arguable that this phase marked the game’s finest but final years as a broadly based and deeply embedded sport, nationally acknowledged and appreciated. The attitude towards cricket in the Second was the converse of what it had been in the First of the World Wars. It was recognised that in the grim attrition of total war both military and civilian personnel had the need of relief and respite. Importantly, there was also the fund-raising component; a lot of the matches played were in aid of war charities. There was also a propaganda element; it was recognised that stopping cricket at Lord’s would have been a coup for Joseph Goebbels, the expert if satanic Nazi communicator. Proposals to run some kind of county competition, perhaps on a regional basis, were denied. Although, perhaps mistakenly, the cricketing powers ruled out any such official attempt, unlike the Football League who contrived so to do, there was encouragement to those who wished to organise and play the game. In the event, and increasingly, the amount of cricket played was substantial at all levels. As until the closing stages of the war none of it was first-class, its impact has perhaps been underestimated. This laissez-faire or, to use a 1940s phrase, ‘go as you please’ approach meant there was a mixture of cricketing opportunities both at playing and spectating levels. For example, there was a considerable degree of forces’ cricket and also among the civil defence personnel, with fire service, wardens, home guards and so on forming teams. Some counties tried to sustain a fixture list while Lord’s planned an excellent programme, often with military connotations, for which Sir Pelham Warner was largely responsible. Two interesting developments were the British Empire XI, a strictly amateur outfit, and the London Counties XI, just as sternly professional, keen to preserve cricketing standards and protect the income of players unfit for military service. Throughout the war these two elevens played well over 400 fixtures. League cricket was maintained in the war years, with professional engagements increasing in the latter years of hostilities. In the north-west the prolixly titled Lady Kemsley’s Daily Dispatch War Fund XI was a staple. Under the masterly oversight of George Duckworth they played reinforced local clubs on every Sunday throughout every season of the war. Two significant points arise from this motley display of cricketing persistence in the face of war. The first concerns the incidence of the Cricket and Society in the 1940s