Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to Tony Webb, for the original suggestion that Michael Falcon would be a suitable subject for the ‘Lives in Cricket’ series and for supplying me with much material on Falcon. His encouragement, as I made my first foray into authorship outside the field of scientific research, was much appreciated. Peter Wynne-Thomas was an invaluable source of information and very helpful in allowing me access to his unpublished index to The Cricketer and hosting me whilst I chased up the references in the Trent Bridge library’s run of that magazine. Amazingly, given that Michael Falcon was born over 120 years ago, four of his five children are still alive. His son, Michael Gascoigne Falcon, has provided me with much material, including many interesting anecdotes which do not survive anywhere else. His sisters, Anne and especially Sybil, have also written of their memories of their father. Michael Gascoigne and Sybil have also been very kind in handing over to my safekeeping many of the photographs that contribute to this volume. Memories of Michael Falcon have also been kindly provided by Alf Mace, one of only two cricketers still alive who played Minor Counties Championship cricket under Falcon’s leadership, whilst stories of Falcon in his extreme old age were provided by Peter Harrison, who was his neighbour in the Cathedral Close in Norwich. Thanks are due to the staff at the following institutions in Norwich: the Library at the Forum, the Norfolk Record Office (where the relevant Norfolk scorebooks are kept under references SO14/1 and SO14/2) and the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum. Further afield, invaluable help has come from Rita Boswell at the Harrow School archive; Jayne Ringrose at Pembroke College, Cambridge; Neil Robinson at the MCC Library at Lord’s; and from staff at the British Newspaper Library at Colindale; the Guildhall Library in the City of London; the Parliamentary Archive; the National Archive at Kew; and the Cambridge Union Society. Whilst I was researching in London, Rachel Neaman and Tomi Pauk were 131