Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

117 Chapter Nineteen For King and Country, again ‘What did you do during the Second World War?’ was a question often asked of Jack. But he was always very guarded in his response, revealing little about his work initially in the Intelligence Corps, and subsequently elsewhere as his linguistic skills in French and Russian saw him look after the welfare of groups of prisoners-of-war and displaced nationals from Eastern Europe at an internment camp in Northern Ireland. ‘Ah, I just did a bit of work in intelligence,’ was Jack’s standard response before deftly and politely changing the subject, usually back to cricket. But his county colleagues were in no doubt that he played more than just a minor role, as he was such an intelligent and capable individual. Dennis Brookes, of Northamptonshire, remembers how Jack could regularly complete The Times crossword in less than five minutes, whilst others fondly recalled how he could hold his own in conversations on almost every subject, especially when socialising after hours and meeting new folk. 106 On many occasions, he had proudly told his Glamorgan colleagues – and anyone else who would listen – that he was probably the only Russian-speaking professional in cricket history and it was these linguistic skills which were soon put to good use after he had volunteered, for the second time in his life, to serve King and Country. 107 His talents were soon recognized as, apparently, he spent time in the early years of the Second World War at Bletchley Park, assisting the hard-pressed staff as they translated and sent coded messages to colleagues in Eastern Europe, and rose by 1942 to the rank of lieutenant. He was subsequently transferred to an Army intelligence base near Coventry, but like a lot of Jack’s wartime activities, his time there is still shrouded in mystery, and is likely to remain so until some future declassification of military records. What is known for certain is that during 1942 and 1943 Jack found time to play cricket, appearing for various Army teams and other scratch elevens in morale-boosting matches designed to boost the war effort and raise funds for wartime charities. With Maurice Turnbull serving on the Army’s cricket committee, and other eminent players such as Gubby Allen and Brian Sellers also involved, Jack was pleased to accept their offer to appear in some of the matches. 106 The News Chronicle Cricket Annual of 1939 had reported him as ‘one of the best cricket “yarners” in the country.’ 107 Phil Neale, who played for Worcestershire from 1975 to 1992, and thus overlapped with the end of Jack’s scoring career, graduated in Russian from Leeds University.