Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

165 The Coach Victoria Road church founded by oecumenical Baptists a little closer to the city centre on London Road than Houghton House. 287 The bearers were George Geary, Alec Skelding, Tommy Sidwell, Alan Shipman, Les Berry and Alec Hyslop, the last a non-cricketing friend. Among the large congregation were the chairman of the county club, F.S.Smith, and other players and staff, Walter Buswell of Northamptonshire, Fred Ryan of Glamorgan and Hampshire, and representatives of the Leicestershire Cricket Association, Leicester Ivanhoe and Leicester Town among many cricket clubs, Leicester City Football Club, and the Birstall and Kibworth golf clubs. Wreaths came from many sporting bodies including Leicestershire CCC and Surrey CCC, the Rhodesian Cricket Union and also the county’s Australian pair Vic Jackson and Jack Walsh, who were coaching in Rhodesia at the time. Inhumation followed in the nearby Welford Road Cemetery, not far from Victoria Park where William Ewart Astill had first showed his talent for the game in Leicester. He shares a grave 288 with his parents, the words in capitals, ‘ ALSO WILLIAM EWART, DIED 10 TH FEB,1948. AGED 59 YEARS .’ being added at the bottom over R.I.P. and still, despite my best efforts, partly obscured by stubborn shoots from a subterranean root. There is thus no epitaph: if, however, during his lifetime Ewart Astill had given any thoughts to this, from what we know of his life and character they would have chimed with those of G.D.Martineau: If the English grass that I walk to-day Some morrow may be over my head, If the men who play when I cease to play Give ever a thought to the dead, I pray that my friends will carve me a stone, And grave me a line on its face, And a simple legend, to make it known As a Cricketer’s resting place. And those who shall follow – caught, stumped or bowled – However, whenever they yield, They shall range them around, as they stood of old, And I’ll take my place in the field. And whether the wicket be dry or wet, The season shall find us the same – Eleven good fellows and all well met In the game that is more than a game. 289 Nearly a quarter of a century after his death, on the Saturday of the opening match of the 1970 season, a ceremony was held at the County Ground when oil portraits 290 of Leicestershire’s two greatest home-born 287 The church fronts London Road, its northern side along what was originally Occupation Road, then Victoria Road and now University Road. For further details on the church see Chapter 1. 288 No. 1055 in the consecrated section B. On the reverse of the slab were later added the names of his brother Ephraim and his wife. 289 Written at Lyme Regis in 1926 and published in The Cricketer on 10 July of that year. 290 They were painted by a member, L.V.T.Preater.