Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

28 Never a run to have lasted too far into his adult life, it was still remembered when he died in 1953, when the obituary in the Peterborough Citizen recalled that he was ‘generally reckoned to be one of the outstanding outside-lefts in the district’. The Peterborough Standard remembered him in very similar terms, except that we read there that he ‘played left back for Peterborough Thursday in his younger days. He was acknowledged as one of the finest players in this position in the district’. Pay money, take choice; but the long and short is that he was clearly highly regarded as a left-sided footballer (although he both batted and bowled right-handed). Perhaps if cricket hadn’t been able to dominate his sporting life - and if his playing hadn’t been restricted by shop hours to playing in the Peterborough Thursday League - he might have been able to make his mark with the side that is now Peterborough United. Who knows … But football was not his principal recreation away from the cricket field. That was music, which his daughter has described to me as “his passion”. As a boy, Harry - like his father and grandfather - was a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral, and until his third year there, the cathedral paid all his fees at The King’s School. This arrangement presumably ended when his voice broke, but assistance with fees continued with a partial grant from the school’s governors. Many a boy treble has no voice for, or no enthusiasm for, singing in later years, but not Harry Wilson. Once his adult voice, and his career, had settled, he joined the Peterborough Operatic Society, and remained a leading force in that organisation for the rest of his life. In 1951 he received a medal to mark his 25 years with the society, and on his death two years later he was remembered by the society in particular for his “loyalty, co-operation, and above all his deep sense of humour”. 18 In his time he served on the society’s committee, but his main contribution was adding his baritone voice to its productions over many years. Sometimes he took a lead role (Sarah recalled him as Athos in ‘The Three Musketeers’, while his newspaper obituaries refer to a recent appearance in ‘The Dancing Years’), while at other times he was content with more minor parts, or roles in the chorus. His daughter also suggests - though she is not certain - that he took part in performances of the local Gilbert & Sullivan Society. She also recalls that, surprisingly, he could not read music, but he could play the piano by ear. His tastes apparently extended to all kinds of music, with one conspicuous exception: as his daughter told me, ‘I remember that he did not like Petula Clark!!’. His love of music was passed on to his children, whom he used to test by asking them to name the composers and titles of whatever pieces of music they were listening to. Sarah is probably too modest to say how well she performed in such tests, but he must have been a good teacher, for later she followed her father as a leading light (and leading performer) of both the local Operatic & Dramatic Society and the G & S Society. So, our man seems to be Alastair Cook and Phil Sharpe rolled into one, as a singer if not perhaps as a cricketer … 18 From an appreciation in the Peterborough Citizen , 26 May 1953