Lives in Cricket No 46 - George Raikes

106 Chapter Ten The Rector of Bergh Apton – The End of a Muscular Christian His career as a cricketer for Norfolk having come to a conclusion in 1913, Raikes was able to devote his time entirely to the wants of the Duke of Portland. When the Great War commenced the Duke had passed his 60 th birthday and there was absolutely no question that he would volunteer to fight – indeed he was sufficiently old that his son, the Marquis of Titchfield, who had played cricket alongside Raikes at Welbeck, was of an age to serve on the Western Front. Raikes, himself over 40, was therefore fortunate enough to spend the War chaplaining quietly in Nottinghamshire; his most strenuous task would have been ministering to the wounded NCOs and men undergoing treatment in the hospital constructed in Welbeck. Raikes did not linger with the Duke for long after the War ended, and the Eastern Evening News of 1 March 1920 published the headline: “Rev G.B.Raikes Returning To Norfolk”. It went on to report that “The Rev George Barkley Raikes, MA, who since 1905 has been chaplain to the Duke of Portland, has been appointed to the living of Bergh Apton, rendered vacant by the resignation of the Rev H.W.G.Thursby MA.” The article went on to laud Raikes “for his great achievements on the cricket and football fields”, citing his Blue at both sports for Oxford as evidence and stating: “As an all-round player [for Norfolk] he was for many seasons without an equal.” Bergh Apton The village of Bergh Apton, to which Raikes had been appointed rector, was a little larger than his birthplace of Carleton Forehoe, but still describable as small and widely scattered. It, too, had a subsidiary parish – in this case Holverston, whose only point of interest was its sizeable hall (note 1) . It is seven-and-a-half miles to the south-east of Norwich and three-and-a-half miles north-west of Loddon – not far from Carleton Forehoe in truth. The parish church is that of SS Peter and Paul, an early English building with a tower 65 feet high. In 1916, the living had a yearly value of £320 which included 47 acres of glebe land, to be rented out to tenant farmers. The remains of another church, that of St Martin, had been disposed of in 1834 but the village retained its reading room - full of ‘improving’ literature rather than jolly good reads, this building also functioned as changing rooms for the village cricket and football teams. The population of the parish at this time was fairly stable, varying between 420 and 450. According to the census of 1901, the vast majority of the