Lives in Cricket No 16 - Joe Hardstaff

they came and for the most part one could not have wished for a more modest, entertaining, and charming companion. He was a great raconteur and had a fund of amusing stories about his career in the world of cricket, the places he had visited and the people he had met. In his later years on many occasions I begged him to write his autobiography, if only for the benefit of my son – his grandson – but he always refused, saying: ‘No one would be interested in me and my doings.’ For this reason, I am deeply grateful to Roger Moulton for setting down on paper the bones and some of the flesh of my father’s career. When father died I received more than two hundred and fifty letters of sympathy from all over the world, most of them from people I did not know, all expressing sentiments to the effect that ‘watching your father bat gave me enormous pleasure’. I sincerely hope that this book will add something more to their appreciation of my father – Joe Hardstaff, junior. We shall not see his like again. Seend, Wiltshire June, 2010 6