Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

devotedly write to each on a Sunday, carrying the letters by foot to the postbox on North Burlingham Green regardless of the weather. Given a good start in life by caring parents – not forgetting the role played by their mother – Falcon’s children did well for themselves. Sybil’s junior twin sister Anne went to the Slade School of Art and became an artist, marrying Peter Arkell, who came from a family of brewers. Their younger sister Rachel studied history at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford and married John Clark. Michael Gascoigne followed his father into the brewery business, becoming head brewer and later joint managing director of E.Lacon and Co Ltd, which was taken over by Whitbread in 1965, and also onto the board of Norwich Union, a position in which he was by no means overshadowed by either his father or his grandfather. As well as his activities in brewing and insurance he was chairman of the National Seed Development Organisation from 1972 until 1982, being appointed CBE in 1979 ‘for services to the seed industry’. He was also much involved with St. John Ambulance and has been the High Steward of Great Yarmouth for the past 25 years. In 2009 he was awarded the honorary freedom of the borough of Great Yarmouth. 58 Of all the children, Sybil had perhaps the most interesting life, dedicating herself to missionary work in South Africa and allowing herself only infrequent trips back to England. When she finished her labours abroad she returned home to look after her widowed mother and later married the Very Rev David Edwards, who had been Dean of Norwich and then Provost of Southwark. Finishing this brief look at the Falcon family it would doubtless have pleased the old cricketer to know that he has several young male descendants who are, according to his son, capable and enthusiastic cricketers. Perhaps the name of Falcon will reappear in first-class or Norfolk cricket? When Falcon and his wife left Burlingham House in 1969 they sold it to the local society for mentally handicapped people who converted it into a permanent residence for adults with learning disabilities. When the facilities were extended into the stable Elder Statesman: 1930-1939 97 58 Indeed two acquaintances of mine who have worked for Norwich Union thought, when told that I was writing a biography of Michael Falcon but not told that cricket was involved, that the book would be about Michael Gascoigne Falcon rather than his father. He married April Lambert and had three children; Claire, Michael and Andrew – the last of whom chaired the Eastern Region of the Royal Forestry Society. After Whitbread closed down the Lacon brewery in 1968, he joined the board of another East Anglian brewer, Greene King and chaired local health authorities.