Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

82 both Magnet and Gem , filling in as a substitute writer, that is, under the byline of another. When peace came he took on a series of editorial and writing tasks, inclusive of adopting the styling of Madge North and Judy Gray for the delectation of schoolgirl readers. The judicious Padwick bibliography lists twenty-one Pentelow items, about half factual and half fictitious. The latter include several stories written for the Boys’ Friend Library under the pseudonym of Richard Randolph. Here we discover more fictional counties in the shape of Rocklandshire and Cardenshire, although it does seem that JN Pentelow, contrary to the party line, allowed his minor characters to score a few runs and take the odd wickets and for his heroes to be scuttled for the occasional duck. Polite but a little aloof and probably deeply depressed, he was compared by his colleagues with Dr Locke, the reclusive head of Greyfriars – and he did have his troubles with Charles Hamilton. In Magnet number 250 in 1918, he wrote a Greyfriars yarn under the heading of Frank Richards and he killed off Courtenay of the Sixth Form in a fire. This had been done on the wish of higher authority, anxious to avoid further confusion as there was also a Courtenay featured in another Magnet school, Highcliffe. His creator had not been consulted. Like Charles Dickens, Charles Hamilton inhabited the world of his characters. It was as if some upstart at the printers had decided to have David Copperfield run over by a coach and killed on his intrepid journey to Great Aunt Betsey Trotwood’s in chapter eight of that much- loved novel. Mortified and livid, ‘Frank Richards’ laid all the unforgiving blame at the door of the ever unfortunate Pentelow, who, nevertheless, should be listed as one of the busiest of school tale authors and certainly the most cricket-savvy. Apparently the feud between the two lingered on long after both their deaths, the row kept going by their respective advocates. As for cricket on the sacred Greyfriars turf, we are indebted to JF Burrell for his 1983 article in The Journal of the Cricket Society on this important topic. Burrell begins by pointing The Flood (1) Greyfriars For Ever..And Ever