Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

54 Chapter Five The New Man At the outbreak of war Astill joined the Royal Leicestershire Regiment as a private, but, like his county colleagues Billy Odell and Alec Skelding 110 showed sufficient leadership qualities to be marked out for officer rank, a thing much commoner in the Second than in the First World War. On 27 February 1918 he was commissioned from an Officer Cadet Unit into the 5th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (TA) and immediately transferred to the 29th Battalion of the Machine Guns Corps with whom he served until release late the following year. The Machine Gun Corps, formed without fanfare as late as 10 May 1916, expanded in 1918 to four 110 Lieutenant Odell, shortly after being awarded theMilitaryCross for ‘conspicuous gallantry’, was killed in action at Passchendaele. Skelding became a Lieutenant in the General Service Corps. Perhaps I may be permitted here to correct what I wrote in J.H.King , p 91: despite his daughter’s insistence to me that he never served in the army, the late Mike Spurrier, to whom I am much indebted for information on the military careers of Leicestershire cricketers, assured me that King initially served as a private in the Leicestershire Regiment, but in view of his age was probably kept at Glen Parva barracks for the duration of his service. Dressed for service. Astill poses with his officer’s staff in his Leicester Tigers’ uniform.