Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

The Falcon brothers at War, 1914-1918 During the First World War all three Falcon brothers served at a variety of fronts. Michael senior and Isabella must have feared for the safety of their sons but, unlike so many families on both sides, the Falcons were lucky and the three brothers survived the War without so much as a scratch between them. 22 Little evidence remains today of the service records of the Falcons, the archives having sustained heavy damage during the Second World War, but a summary of what is known will give a taste of what they underwent. Taking Over the Reins at Norfolk: 1911-1914 41 Michael Falcon in the Royal Field Artillery, in Palestine in 1918. 22 Norfolk cricket as a whole was not as fortunate as the Falcon family during the Great War. No fewer than six players, all of them officers, were killed in action: Gervase Birkbeck, George Carter, Vincent Hoare, Sydney Page, Eric Penn and Ralph Thurgar, M.C. After the war a memorial was erected in the pavilion at Lakenham; it was unveiled by the Norfolk chairman Ernest Raikes and dedicated by Rev H.B.J.Armstrong, in the presence of Michael Falcon and Henry Grierson, the captain of Bedfordshire, against whom Norfolk were then playing.