LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

56 in the Middlesex side at the beginning of August for a couple of games but without much success and his record for the season, 685 runs at an average of 31.00 and 42 wickets for 29.61 each, with no Test appearances, was not the result he had been expecting. Work now occupied him full-time until the start of the new football season but his first run-out was not until 6 October when he made an emotional return to Highgate School with the Corinthians ‘A’ eleven, helping them beat the school 5-0. He played only four games for the first eleven, not wishing to travel to away matches until his last game of the season on 9 February and a month later celebrated the birth of his first son, Robert Victor Charles, on 13 March at their recently built new home at Burnham Beeches. Robbie had bought a piece of land in Green Lane, about half-a- mile from their first house in Burnham village. Its plot occupied about three-quarters of an acre with farmland at the back and views over the golf course. The house was built to Kathleen’s design with five bedrooms, three reception rooms and two bathrooms. There was a big lawn at the front with room for a cricket net, and another at the back, later converted into a tennis court. Then Robbie was clearing the decks for what appeared to be a make-or- break cricket season. What he did not know was that, behind the scenes, the Middlesex committee were seeking a new captain now that Nigel Haig had finally retired and Tom Enthoven was unable to commit to more than an occasional appearance. Enthoven had been inclined to be somewhat lackadaisical as a captain and on more than one occasion had accidentally shown Robbie how not to look after his team. During an early game of the 1933 season against Gloucestershire Wally Hammond had been thrashing the ball all over Lord’s when the tea interval arrived with the new ball long overdue. According to Ian Peebles, as the Middlesex players trudged off Captain of Middlesex Prosperous times. The Robins family’s new house under construction in Green Lane, Burnham, in 1934. At one time it had two cricket nets.