Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

family,’ she told me. Frank was able to provide a comfortable and secure environment for his children. ‘It was a happy family and the children were happy in each other’s company,’ said Lorna. Frank made sure that the girls, as well as their brother Frank Reginald, had a good education ‘to fit them for life in the wider world’. In contrast to their brother, the girls were all keen on sports, particularly tennis and swimming. Frank encouraged their interest in every way that he could. During holidays from school in the Isle of Man, Frank would join his children in swimming and rowing. Frank became interested in art. He was a serious collector of paintings and glassware in particular, though sometimes the lure of profit would tempt him into a quick resale. Landscapes and still lives purchased by Frank are among Lorna’s treasured possessions. Frank was also an early enthusiast for motor cars. Perhaps predictably, he got a number of tickets for speeding. On one occasion, a car in which he was travelling, but not driving, overturned. Frank was pinned underneath and unconscious for a few moments. Happily he suffered no serious injury. The newspaper account of the accident reports that the car was ‘capable of 40 mph!’ 64 Frank Sugg was very close to his brother, Walter. After all, they ran a successful business together. But it seems that Frank was not popular with Walter’s family. Walter’s great-grandson, Hubert Henri Timothy Sugg, told me that his grandfather and father, who in their turn had built up their own business, HHB Sugg Ltd, in competition with Frank Sugg’s company, regarded Frank as ‘the black sheep of the family’. Timothy had no direct knowledge of how this situation had come about. It could have been a result of disputes over business matters but Timothy believes that a more likely cause was Frank’s involvement in horse racing (about which more in a later chapter) and in particular his (alleged) gambling habit. Timothy has no direct evidence that Frank was a gambler; it is known that Frank was a keen card player for ‘nice fat kitties’, though that hardly makes him a compulsive gambler. But gambling was much frowned upon by Timothy Sugg’s father and grandfather. Timothy said that both reacted angrily if any conversation strayed on to horse racing, commenting that Frank had ‘lost a fortune on the horses’, and ‘they would not hear his name spoken in the house’. The hostility of Bert Sugg (Timothy’s 66 Marriage and Family 64 Lorna Brown cutting.