Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

MP, Sir Arthur Harbord, died. As chairman of the Yarmouth and Gorleston Co-ordinating Committee, Michael Falcon was responsible for overseeing the selection of the Liberal, Mr Percy Jewson (a former Lord Major of Norwich), as the National Government candidate. Jewson was duly elected, unopposed. Nor was that the end of his many duties: in February 1943, for example, six Canadian soldiers were welcomed to lunch by the Lord Mayor of Great Yarmouth, following which they were given a guided tour of the town, seeing bomb damage and places of interest, conducted by Falcon acting in his role as chairman of the local Ministry of Information committee. Meanwhile, as Michael Falcon was busying himself with his various administrative duties, the war went on and casualties amongst the Norfolk players inevitably occurred. The first draftees, Basil Rought-Rought and John Wood, were reported as missing in action as early as 20 July 1940 and news of Geoff Edrich’s imprisonment by the Japanese whilst serving in the Far East was similarly described. In the end the only fatalities suffered amongst the regular Norfolk squad of the late 1930s were David Walker, who was killed whilst flying over Norway in February 1942 and buried in Trondheim, and Tristan Ballance, who was killed near Naples in December 1943. Michael Falcon, who was particularly close to David Walker, took these losses hard. 60 In November 1944, Michael Falcon’s duties with the Home Guard came to an end as the 6th Battalion of the Norfolk Home Guard had a ‘stand down’ parade at Britannia Barracks, receiving official thanks from Field Marshal Lord Ironside and a farewell from their commanding officer, Colonel A.R.Taylor. Falcon’s daughter Anne recalls that, when released from their military duties, many of the men in her father’s platoon reunited to form the Burlingham Bowling Club which played its matches on summer evenings on the lawn in front of BurlinghamHouse. (Although she does not say, the chances are that Falcon himself would have tended the lawn!) In time the club acquired their own hut on the green at North Burlingham. As civil defence duties were wound down, cricketing matters recommenced and the Norfolk C.C.C. committee made Second World War and Beyond 103 60 Other Norfolk players who lost their lives in the Second World War were John Bally (whose cricketing heyday was in the twenties), David Colman (son of Geoffrey Colman), James Jackson, Alexander Barton, Gordon Thorne and Alan Colman.