Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

169 Sources The production of this story of Maurice Leyland’s life has been a long journey that includes many years of the project lying dormant. As a consequence many of the interviews conducted with Maurice’s contemporaries, either team members or those he coached, have since passed away. But, it was a privilege to be able to have those conversations. Among those interviews were those with Yorkshire CCC legends like Fred Trueman, who wasn’t slow to tell me he was paying for the call when one phone call caught him on holiday in Spain! There was fellow left hander Brian Close; newspaper journalist EW Swanton; former England team-mate NS Mitchell-Innes; old Australian adversary Bill Brown, whom I visited in Australia, who was Maurice’s only Test victim with his left arm wrist spin; Maurice’s nephew Geoff Rimington, who was like the son he never had; and Sir Marcus Worsley of Hovingham Hall, who was the son of Sir William, one of Maurice’s first county captains. All gone but men who will never be forgotten by me. Of those living there were family recollections from his cousin Mercy Hawksworth and second cousin Maurice Baren, a short letter from the Duchess of Kent, Harrogate CC team-mates Colin Chadwick, Peter Kippax and Jack Lancaster, and surviving Yorkshire players Bryan Stott and Ray Illingworth. Maurice’s mother was an ardent scrapbookist and kept a pile of assorted ephemera that Maurice ultimately passed on to his nephew Geoff, with the letters and photos he had collected himself during his lifetime, and this all found its way to me for my research. I also made full use of the library at the offices of the Yorkshire Post newspaper offices, where I worked as a freelance sports writer from 1985 to 2000, and added to all this were references from many of the books in my own personal library which are listed in the bibliography. In addition, record breaking Harrogate and Yorkshire all rounder Peter Chadwick, and Mark Paynter, grandson of one time England colleague Eddie Paynter, and living relatives have also helped in providing personal recollections of Maurice. Maurice’s late nephew Geoff Rimmington, and Geoff’s daughter Dr Jane Rimmington, provided both interviews and Maurice’s own archive - from which the bulk of the personal information has been derived. My thanks to the ACS for publishing this work, and in particular to proof-reader Kit Bartlett and editor and indexer Mark Rowe.