LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

54 Chapter Six Captain of Middlesex When Robbie arrived home from America he discovered that Kathleen had already been taking positive steps to help resolve his employment/ cricket dilemma. An offer awaited him: ‘an interest in the family firm of insurance brokers that had been started by my father, Stafford Knight and Co, connected with Lloyds, with whom my father and two of my brothers were underwriters.’ Having already proved himself a successful salesman working in the advertising department of the Nottingham Furniture Company, Robbie was now going to sell general insurance on half commission with a minimum guarantee of £400 p.a.: his commitment was to be flexible enough to ensure that he would be able to play full-time first-class cricket during the summer months. Advising Sir Julien Cahn of his intention to sever his connection with the Nottingham Furniture Company, Robbie was summoned to his employer’s office. After thanking Robbie for all his help and support over the past three years, Sir Julien had a more practical way of expressing his gratitude. On his desk in front of him was a pile of correspondence which he picked up and passed across to Robbie. They were copies of letters that had been sent by Sir Julien to the many furniture manufacturers around London, introducing Robbie and saying that unless they placed their insurances through him, their relationship with the purchasing department of Nottingham Furnishing Company ‘could be reviewed’. Insurances on highly combustible products is expensive and Robbie never forgot this exceptional act of kindness that set up his insurance career and in his first year alone saw him earn £2,700 in commission. It seems that he took to the arcane world of insurance as to the manor born. But first of all he had to establish himself in business and this left little time to train and play for the Corinthians whose new football season was well underway. That winter he played only five games for the first eleven, sometimes as inside forward, other times on the wing, and turned down the invitation to go on the club’s Easter tour of Germany, Holland and Denmark. Robbie’s priority was following up and converting all the leads supplied by Sir Julien into contracts so that his office desk was clear before the start of the 1934 cricket season. With that achieved by the end of April he was delighted to accept Sir Julien’s invitation to play at West Bridgford in a pair of back-to-back two-day matches against Derbyshire and Leicestershire. And this time it did not mean sacrificing a first-class county match, as he could go straight from Nottingham to Northampton where Middlesex began their season the next day. Ian Peebles joined Robbie at West