Lives in Cricet No 33 - Jack Robertson and Syd Brown

125 Chapter Twenty-Three After Cricket Professional sportsman have a difficult decision to make on retirement from the game. As Syd pointed out to a local newspaper reporter: ‘Twenty- five years of cricket counts for nothing in getting a job’, a warning he directed particularly at young players. After Middlesex he eventually became a publican, a not unusual calling for a former professional cricketer. The local press carried a photograph of him pulling a pint while he trained at The Belmont Hotel, Belmont Circle, in Harrow. He also put in some time with Les Compton at the Hanley Arms, Hornsey before, in the summer of 1957, moving from Greenford to become landlord of The White Horse at Harefield. 174 The previous incumbent, a retired RAF squadron leader, was moving on after three years. He said that it had all been ‘very jolly’ and that the customers had been quite wonderful. As Syd would stay for 21 years before retiring I’m sure the brewery, Ind Coope, appreciated the continuity he provided. The White Horse was a very attractive building of sixteenth-century origin. At the time of writing it was still standing, but sadly no longer open for business. It was a typical unpretentious hostelry of its time, one of several in Harefield, with a public bar and, for any clientele who wanted a more elegant experience, a saloon bar. Alan Moss recalled that the Middlesex players went along to Syd’s opening evening. In order to get things going with a swing a small jazz band had been hired to perform. When Jack, who was partially deaf, arrived, on hearing what seemed unusual sounds emanating from the back room in which they were playing, he commented ‘The plumbing here sounds very noisy’! 175 One of Syd’s early regulars was John Smith who, with friends, used to drink Benskin’s ales in the White Horse in the late 1950s, and then later, after he married and moved to Harefield. It was his ‘local’. He remembers him as a friendly and welcoming landlord, and a totally committed West Ham fan. Denis Compton, Bill Edrich and other former colleagues would occasionally drop in. John Smith’s friends played cricket for the Phoenicians, the old boys team of Drayton Manor Grammar School, and in 174 Harefield is a small village. Although it is in the London Borough of Hillingdon and inside the M25 motorway ‘box’, it is close to the counties of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire and even now has a rural feel to it. It is well known for its world-famous heart and lung hospital. 175 Jack would eventually have some corrective surgery. His deafness, however, had its positive side: he was generally immune to any adverse comments made by close fielders. Also, he thought it an advantage when running between the wickets with Denis Compton! The great batsman was famously not the best judge of a run but Jack never had any problems: ‘I took charge and said “No”’ (West, Peter, Denis Compton: Cricketing Genius , Stanley Paul 1989). Ian recalled a charity match in which Keith Miller shouted down the pitch ‘Bumper coming, Jack’, to be reminded by the non-striker after Jack had evaded it (just), that the warning probably hadn’t been heard!