Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

29 Bearing in mind his background with the cathedral, it came as little surprise when Sarah told me that she believed her father was a religious man in his adult life; he was also a Freemason. And whether just out of duty or through a continuing love for his home city’s impressive cathedral, he maintained involvement with the building during the Second World War when he helped to guard the cathedral against any possible German invasion. 19 We can complete our picture of Harry Wilson with Sarah’s physical description of him: ‘From what I can remember he was about five feet ten inches tall and fairly stocky. He had a delightful sense of humour, and I was always given to understand that he was at home speaking to either a duke or a dustman.’ Both of whom, perhaps, were clients at the shop in Long Causeway, where the proprietor was someone who sounds like a fine man as well as a loving father. And so, at last, we must come to his cricket. Harry Wilson made his way into The King’s School First XI in 1921 at the age of 16. The Petriburgian has this assessment of his first season - how much of it written with tongue in cheek it is hard to tell: “Has a very true eye and so hits - nothing disturbs him. Bowls wides on the off which takes [sic] the leg stump. Good man.” In later seasons, although his batting was certainly useful, it was his bowling that really caught the eye. In 1922 he scored 234 runs at 18 and took second place in the bowling averages with 57 wickets at around eight apiece; as captain in 1923 his returns declined a little (167 runs at around 14, and 40 wickets at 8.87), though there might have been more wickets: “Wilson has bowled well, but is very unlucky. Frequently he beats his man only to miss the stumps by millimetres” ( The Petriburgian , July 1923). With the bat, his best effort for the school was an innings of 42 not out against Glinton in 1923. As a bowler, he particularly fancied playing against The King’s School at Grantham, if innings figures of three for 21 and eight for 16 in 1922, and nine for 17 in 1923, are anything to go by. On leaving school he joined the Peterborough Town club, of which he was to remain a playing member until the early 1950s when he was forced to retire by ill health. As with football, the demands of business meant that he played chiefly for the club’s Thursday eleven, though after the Second World War his name appears more frequently in the weekend elevens. He was a useful batsman at club level, but it was still his bowling that was his greater strength. According to CricketArchive he was a medium- pace bowler, though his daughter tells me that she was always given to understand that he was a fast bowler in his younger days and a spin bowler later on. Turning to spin doesn’t seem to have reduced his effectiveness, 19 According to the internet, there were at least eight air raids on the seemingly- unthreatening city of Peterborough between 1940 and 1942, perhaps involving aircrews on their way home after raids on better-known targets such as Coventry. Two of the raids saw bombs falling directly on the city centre, in the second of which (10 August 1942) six bombs fell on the cathedral roof. So guarding the cathedral was not exactly, and not always, a sinecure. Never a run