Lives in Cricket No 30 - MJK Smith

10 pre-cast concrete for cladding, but it owed much to Charles Smith for his invention of a form of artificial stone that could be used to produce hand-finished surfaces to match natural stone copings and carved cornices. Charles Smith was one of just 25 employees when the company moved to Narborough from Leicester, and the product of his invention was later to be seen in the facades of such stores as Selfridges and Marks and Spencer, as well as on the portico of Stowe School chapel. A talented musician, Charles Smith was the Narborough chapel organist and also taught the piano. Maurice Smith, Mike’s father, was educated at Alderman Newton’s School in Leicester. With three partners he set up in the hosiery business in Hinckley, the town that had once been the centre of the trade. ‘There must have been 30 or 40 hosiery manufacturers in Hinckley. Now there are only a couple,’ Mike reflects rather sadly, going on to reveal a true local’s understanding of the distinction between hose – ladies’ stockings, and half-hose – ‘socks, and underwear, all that sort of thing,’ which were concentrated in Leicester. Maurice had been keen on sport and played cricket for his village, but it was from his mother that Mike inherited his sporting genes. Muriel’s older brother Bill played 44 matches for Coventry City in the 1920s until the need for a cartilage operation, considered dangerous in those days, persuaded him to continue playing semi- professionally with Nuneaton. Bill’s children also shone at sport. His daughter Di Batterham – ‘not a bad name for a full back,’ Mike quips – won seven international caps for hockey, going on to manage the Great Britain team at the Barcelona Olympics. Her twin brother David made his mark at rugby, playing for many years on the wing for Leicester Tigers, while he was also a good enough cricketer to have opened the bowling for Loughborough College. Like most of her sisters, Muriel had played hockey, tennis and badminton, all sports that were well catered for in the village. ‘It was almost a family affair,’ says Mike of the ladies’ hockey team that thrived in those days. Ken Bird, the brother who died sadly young, Mike has been told, was an exceptional cricketer, well- known in local circles as a fast bowler. ‘There are three primary schools in the village now,’ Mike says with some incredulity, recalling his own early education when a single school had served all the children of Broughton Astley. In the early years of the war there had been little formal sport at school that Mike can remember, but he and his friends played Finding a small enough bat