Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

112 Cricket buffs are possibly better versed in these years than in the more complex skein of wartime cricket. A damp 1946 brought a courteous if slightly disorientated Indian touring side to these war-torn shores and all the counties managed to break even financially. 1947 was a bonanza summer. 3m flocked through the turnstiles or, as members, hurried to the pavilions, a busy matter of 10,000 a day, as, in mainly glorious sunshine, Denis Compton and Bill Edrich shattered batting records in Middlesex’s famous championship triumph. Kent attracted 200,000 paying spectators; twice as many as in 1939. 1948 was a another good year for the county treasurers, if less so for the county coaches as Don Bradman’s Invincibles conquered all before them in a devastating sweep through the kingdom. 9 Meanwhile, there were preliminary clues of the internal changes that were occurring whether the authorities liked them or not. There was a packed house at Old Trafford for the first day of Lancashire’s game against the visiting Australians of 1948. Against all previous practice, the Lancashire committee had kindly favoured Cyril Washbrook with this fixture for his benefit match. It was also the first benefit venture to have the services of its own special committee who organised a season-long series of fund- raising Sunday matches and other events, all of which endeavour resulted in a spectacular sum of over £14,000 for the fortunate Lancashire hero. It was a record amount that stood the test of time. During the interval Cyril Washbrook spoke of his appreciation to the crowd over the public address system, that mechanism itself being something of a novelty. These, it must be remembered, were more humane times when sports personalities were not supposed to have the conversational powers of a Max Beerbohm or an Oscar Wilde in addition to their footballing or cricketing skills. In other words, we were not used then to hearing them speak. Today, cruelly, on radio and, worse, on television, all players are forced orally to display their leaden modesty and despairing cliches, to their embarrassment and to the discomfort of the sensitive listener or watcher. As soon as Cyril Washbrook opened his mouth a reactive murmur ran through the throng. He spoke in assured, deep, unaccented tones. It was not the voice we had expected to emanate from the larynx of a Lancashire professional. We had not thought it would be all ‘ee bah gum ‘ dialect but we were surprised it was not more homely and broad- vowelled in intonation. I have a very clear remembrance of my own teen- age response – which was that he spoke like a teacher. A horrified Neville Cardus and a gratified Herbert Sutcliffe would have alike acknowledged that change was afoot. World War II saw a shake-up of the social conventions. They were in succession to the pre-war hints of a suburban, even bourgeois, cut of the professional cricketer’s jib. Another of these portents, one referred to earlier, was the number of professional cricketers commissioned in World War II in marked difference to its rarity in World War I. Major Sutcliffe and Squadron Leader Wally Hammond have already been mentioned in dispatches. Army colleagues of the former to be commissioned were, among others, Hedley Verity, Stan Worthington, Bill Bowes, Alf Gover and Maurice Leyland, while the latter’s fellow RAF Cricket and Society in the 1940s