Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

52 Swansea at war Shortly afterwards, Glamorgan announced that their concluding away matches against Wiltshire at Trowbridge and Essex 2 nd XI at Leyton plus the game with the MCC at the Arms Park had all been cancelled. Shortly after, Swansea rugby club, who had organised a few trial matches, announced that their forthcoming fixtures had also been cancelled, and the season of 1914 drew to a hasty close at St. Helen’s as a couple of benefit matches for Bancroft were arranged against both Llanelli and Cardiff. As further contingents of troops signed up in Swansea, and throughout South Wales, the mood was quite upbeat with most people believing that the war would be over by Christmas. The reality was very, very different and it was not until some five years later that cricket finally resumed. By September 1914 a series of rifles ranges were established across the outfield at St. Helen’s, with the facility being used by the Swansea Battalion Voluntary Training Corps. The cricketers soon swapped their whites for khaki uniform, with James Maxwell, like so many of the town’s sportsmen, readily answering Lord Kitchener’s call to arms. He enlisted with the Royal Artillery and duly undertook a number of postings in Cyprus, Salonika, Egypt and Palestine. During the latter, he was wounded in both his right arm and leg by flying shrapnel and was forced to return home where his wounds eventually healed. So many others, though, were not so fortunate as they died doing their gallant best for King and Country on the bloody battlefields of France and Belgium. After being discharged in March 1920, Maxwell returned to Swansea and re-opened his sports outfitters shop and drapery business which he had established a dozen or so years before, following his move from the West Country to South Wales. But whereas several of those who returned from foreign fields were able to resume their cricketing careers, Maxwell’s injured arm and leg ruled out any thoughts of resuming his career as a professional cricketer. However, he retained a link with the Swansea club and mixed coaching duties with running his drapery and sports outfitters. He duly met with some success but, for the second time, the Germans had an important say in his life as his premises were completely destroyed by bombing in 1943. But many others who played at Swansea during 1914 did not return, including David Cuthbert Thomas, the only son of Reverend Evan Thomas, the vicar of Llanedy near Ammanford, who had shown rich promise as a young sportsman at Christ College Brecon. His performances in matches at Brecon and also at St. Helen’s had impressed the watching Glamorgan selectors, and in June 1914 after completing a match-winning innings for the school against Builth Wells, the nineteen year-old was chosen in their all-amateur team for the match against their counterparts from Carmarthenshire at Stradey Park in Llanelli on 27 and 28 July in 1914. Tommy’s parents and girlfriend were delighted to travel the short distance from Ammanford to Llanelli to watch the game as the Glamorgan Gentlemen chased a target of 321 to win. Arthur O’Bree, a Colonel in the Territorial Army, led the way with a fluent hundred, and was well past 150 when the young schoolboy went out to bat, eager to continue the