Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

104 the newspaper cuttings recording the shooting party’s successes, such as this one from August 1909: ‘Ardross - On the 12th, 124 brace of grouse; on the 13th, 129.5; on the 16th, 47.5, and on the 17th 101.5 brace were killed by Mr C.W.Dyson Perrins, Col G.W.Fitton, Rev A. Green-Price, Messrs E.Humbert, Michael Tomkinson, G.E.Wilson Allan, and Charles Perrins.’ Dyson Perrins sold his Ardross estate in 1924, but Alfred’s shooting days seem to have been over before then; yet again, perhaps the death of May was influential in bringing this activity to a close. But clearly it was not forgotten by the ‘correspondent’ who sent in an obituary to The Times 14 years later. One wonders if perhaps that correspondent was Dyson Perrins himself. There is one last activity recorded at some length in Alfred’s scrapbooks - hunting. Yet none of the lengthy cuttings that he thought worthy of preservation mention him by name, even though we know (from reports of cricket matches) that he had associations with the North Herefordshire Hunt. Perhaps he preferred the trappings of the hunt to the chase itself; again quoting his Times obituary, ‘Although not what would be termed a “hunting parson”, the cry of hounds in the Norton Woods would not fail to attract the attention and often the attendance of himself and his shooting cob.’ And so, finally, to cricket. Alfred was not the only member of the family to shine at the game. If you search the pages of Cricket you’ll find references to his older brother Chase playing in the 1880s, and his younger brother Whitmore doing so in the 1880s and ‘90s. Indeed, Whitmore was good enough to play regularly for Worcestershire between 1882 and 1885 (in their pre-Minor The oldest of them all Alfred (second from left) and other family members, ready for a shoot.