Lives in Cricket No 28 - Keith Carmody

30 In the Air and on the Field with the RAAF leave and saw Boston, Mass., NY, Philadelphia and Washington DC.’ His photographs in the American capital reveal friendships with, or hospitality from, a ‘Mrs Short’, and an unnamed girl and predictable pictures of the White House. Less predictable was the news that he’d ‘met Madeline Carroll and broadcasted to Australia’. 13 * * * * * * * In late February 1943, after passage to England from Halifax, Nova Scotia – incidentally but perhaps significantly the hometown of Ruth Mattison Frank – Keith and Norm Craig unexpectedly encountered Bill Bullen at Bournemouth, the location of the Personnel Reception Centre for RAAF men arriving from Canada. Almost 60 years later, in describing a renewed friendship that ignored differences in rank, Bullen was convinced that Keith’s first assignment in Britain was designed to protect him: ‘the authorities for the sake of the morale of the country wanted to ensure his survival so that competition and interest could be sustained in their sporting world.’ Keith’s cricket credentials very soon came to the forefront even before he was required to report to the Air Crew Reception Centre at St John’s Wood and collect uniform and equipment from Lord’s ground itself, as many RAF pilots did. He and Keith Miller (and perhaps others) caused local consternation in Bournemouth by organising a match between Australian and New Zealand 13 It’s unclear whether the broadcast was connected with the meeting with the English-born film star. But her work a year or so later as a nurse in Red Cross field hospitals in Europe suggests the circumstances were more likely to be connected to her support for Allied servicemen rather than intense interest in a young Australian cricketer. Mateship in Canada. Keith’s flying colleagues Ron Prentice and Morton Bruckshaw.