Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

132 website – who had established that ‘Josephine’ McEvoy had been wrongly recorded as ‘Joseph’ in the UK death records for 1963. While sorry to discover the death, I’m delighted to acknowledge my debt to Jane. When the writing was complete I decided a visit to the house that Keith built in Kalamunda was long overdue. When my wife and I arrived without warning, intending just to look at the outside, the current owner, Rosemary Bailey, and her daughter, Rosmund Benson, immediately invited us in. Even though a massive branch from a storm-tossed eucalypt had recently fallen on the house, the only damage was to an extension built since Keith’s time. As they showed us around, the two ladies were rather less complimentary about Keith’s workmanship than his friends the Edwards had been during the period of its construction. But I thank them sincerely for their hospitality and hope they aren’t too upset by the revelation in the last sentence of this book that I failed to convey when we met. Thanks to the internet and the digitising of many records historical research has become much easier in recent years. The National Library of Australia has provided a huge range of Australian newspapers up to 1954 and I was also able to consult much later digitised editions of The Sydney Morning Herald for Keith’s later years, while finding ready access in the same way to The Times , mainly for the period of the Second World War. I must record my appreciation of Mark Rowe’s The Victory Tests. His exploration of Keith Miller’s bogus reputation as a flying ace also showed me how easy it is to access from far away Keith Carmody’s more impressive record in the UK National Archives. Rowe’s book also encouraged me to look further via the internet into Miller’s Australian records. But a visit to Canberra was necessary to read Stan Sismey’s useful but under-used manuscript. I have relied almost entirely on the CricketArchive website for statistical information (from which Philip Bailey has provided supplementary data) even though I have become temporary custodian of a large collection of Wisdens , while their owner, Richard Bosworth, spends three years as a research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. His most relevant contribution, however, is the speed and yet thoroughness of his critical reading of my manuscript. Not for the first time I’m grateful for his support. Similarly, I thank Tracy Bock for again reading one of my books with evident enthusiasm before publication. Naturally, neither of these good friends is responsible for any errors I may have Acknowledgements