Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

In 1969 Michael Falcon reappeared in the cricketing spotlight as the author of a closely argued article on the subject of spin bowling, published in The Cricketer . It showed a mind still sharp and incisive at the age of 81: it was as many as 55 years since he had been co-opted onto the MCC Committee prior to the Great War. In 1971 he was asked to present the caps, at Norwich, to the English Schools Under-15 side when, as was reported by George Chesterton and Hubert Doggart in Oxford and Cambridge Cricket , he was ‘the same courteous and friendly person that his contemporaries had known.’ In his old age, Falcon successfully overcame cancer, but when he and Kathleen moved from North Burlingham to 10 Cathedral Close, Norwich, he was still not very mobile. He developed the habit of taking a walk around the Close every day; his daughter Sybil remembers the soft green turf of the Norwich Grammar School playing fields which would have provided a suitably forgiving surface on which to walk. His quality of life soon improved and before long he was taking an interest in the cricket being played by the schoolboys in the Lower Close, where his old team-mate ‘Bozzy’ Boswell was groundsman. He became friends with his next-door neighbour, Peter Harrison, who ran the Grammar School boarding house for 8-12 year olds and they would frequently chat over the garden fence. 63 Peter Harrison remembers Michael Falcon as a very congenial companion, articulate to the last and full of memories of his ‘golden days’. Unsurprisingly, Sydney Barnes had left a lasting mark on Falcon’s memory and he also recalled playing with Gilbert Jessop and ‘Plum’ Warner. He would also converse with the boys, sometimes delaying their departure from the nets in the direction of the refectory for their tea: in mitigation they would plead that the old man was so interesting that they had lost track of time. Peter Harrison’s son George was presented one birthday with a brand new cricket ball which he treated with reverence and kept in a pristine condition. Another gift, highly valued by Peter, was Michael Falcon’s barrister’s wig which must have been over fifty years old. Falcon was an avid viewer of Test cricket on television; Sybil recalls her father sitting on an upright chair, up close to the 112 Life After Big-Time Cricket 63 I too was a pupil of Peter Harrison at the relevant time, but as a day-boy not a boarder, and so did not attend after-school nets. To think that I got so close to meeting the man who, in researching this book, I have come to consider as Norfolk’s finest and most loyal citizen, is intensely frustrating.