Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

140 form of leisure. Why read a smutty novel, drink alcohol or watch a movie when a girl’s mind and body could be cultivated at the wicket? The WCA declared themselves a model of democratic rule, and both the Association and English Women’s Cricket Federation claimed to be at the vanguard of raising national fitness. However, this relationship was never straight-forward. Players had to balance the need to perform skilfully to avoid ridicule, but limit overly-strenuous play that could lead to cries of ‘unsexing’, uncivilised and unfeminine qualities. Their carefully measured approach both on and off the field meant by the start of the Second World War, they had convinced many politicians, educational institutions, cricket fans and media outlets of the game’s usefulness, making supporters of them, too. ‘During a war and after it a country seems to be entirely male’, Marjorie Pollard wrote in The Cricketer in June 1946. ‘It was so in 1919 when we had to fight every inch of the way to get any women’s games established. It seems to be so again in 1946.’ 9 The machismo of wartime was not mirrored in the Association’s peacetime battles, however. In fact, the success women’s cricket experienced was largely down to a policy that Conclusion - War Again, and its Aftermath Like in the First World War, nurses played with convalescent patients to aid their recovery. This image was taken in July 1942 at the Royal Navy Auxiliary Hospital, Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire. The Castle was one of several specialist hospitals designed to treat patients with severe or chronic psychiatric illnesses. (© IWM A11524)