LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

135 your letter, I sent it round to my solicitor! You got the all clear today, so I am writing to thank you for all the compliments you pay me. Never mind, you gave me great pleasure over the six years you played Test cricket. I can assure you that despite your views of brighter cricket, nothing excites spectators more than seeing the batsman having a swing at the ball, hit or miss, and when in form you didn’t often miss. But there were more pleasant memories to enjoy and the opportunity to share some of them with others through the columns of The Cricketer . His first contribution appeared in the 1967 Spring Annual and was the one previously mentioned in ‘Early Years in Stafford’ and was entitled ‘My First Wisden ’. There was time for just one more article and, true to form, he couldn’t resist the temptation to give some facts about his failures rather than his successes. In the June 1967 issue of The Cricketer he wrote ’On making a pair — or rather four!’ where he listed the four matches in which he had the distinction of being dismissed first ball in each innings. Most cricketers would prefer to forget such ignominy and choose to write about their greatest achievements, but that wouldn’t do for Robbie who loved stories against himself like his four ‘king pairs’ and always got a huge laugh out of telling them. Kathleen wrote of Robbie’s last year: ‘He ate well and slept well, went to the office until within weeks of his death, mostly being driven there and back. He never complained, never once bemoaned his fate — just faded out.’ He died at home on 12 December 1968 – they had now moved to an apartment not far from St John’s Wood tube station — from bronchopneumonia, with Parkinson’s Disease as a secondary factor. Three days later a tribute appeared in the Sunday Telegraph written by John Warr under the heading ‘Never a dull moment with Walter around’ in which he recalled that ‘Walter Robins was the most stimulating and dynamic cricketer that I ever played with. Those may sound strong words but they will be echoed by his contemporaries at Highgate School, Cambridge University, Middlesex County Cricket Club and the England elevens of his time.’ He added: ‘He has enriched cricket with his skill, his humour and his liveliness.’ The funeral took place at Golders Green Crematorium where David Sheppard took the service and made a short address. It was not possible to have an official memorial service at Lord’s but this did not deter Kathleen from ensuring that ‘Headquarters’ would be his final resting place. At the first available opportunity she secretly placed Robbie’s ashes in a shopping bag, cut off a corner and then unobtrusively walked around the playing perimeter of the ground, leaking them out as she went. An obituary appeared in the 1969 Spring Annual of The Cricketer from his oldest and greatest friend, Ian Peebles, who wrote: there departed from cricket its blithest spirit of a generation. He leaves behind him a blaze of achievements, rows, stories, incidents, affections and affronts. His not infrequent disasters, leavened by a wonderful and unfailing sense of humour, are amongst the warmest of the memories which remain so vividly with everyone who knew and played with him. Final Years