Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

A family affair 42 Saddleworth select eleven. Less than a year after that amazingly high scoring game at Walsden the Leylands left behind the sweeping borderland moors and returned to Harrogate. Ted continued to play occasionally but, like most other able bodied males of his age he was caught up in the war and enlisted in the Royal Engineers. He later transferred to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and was sent on active service to Italy where he stayed until the end of the war. Maurice played six games for Harrogate in 1918, scoring 189 runs (at 47.25) and taking 18 wickets - including an eight for 21 return at Bridlington, but joined the Army on reaching his 18th birthday in July 1918. It was to be a brief and not altogether glorious stay. He was still in basic training when the Armistice was signed but it was February before he was demobbed and in his six months or so in uniform he had managed to acquire a stripe (lance corporal) and lose it again. In another extract from Cricket Heroes Bowes recalls Maurice telling him of his military demise. “As a lance- corporal I had to march a detachment down to the cookhouse and back again,” he explained. “One day we were swinging along the road, all carrying knives, forks and spoons, when I saw a ‘brass hat’ coming up the road towards us. I was ready for him. I gave the detachment a sergeant-major like command of ‘Eyes right’ and threw up a beautiful salute. I forgot I had my knife fork and spoon in my right hand. I nearly had my eye out. Next day I was back among the also rans!” The war was to have an unusual end for Ted and Maurice. While one began his journey home in Italy and the other in Clipstone, Nottinghamshire, each unaware of the other, they actually travelled to Harrogate in the same train and arrived home within 20 minutes of each other. A happy day indeed for the waiting Mercy and Cora. After his Army service Maurice had set his heart on becoming a professional cricketer and Harrogate took a chance on him in the summer of 1919 by naming him as their professional. It was a gamble that certainly paid off as the teenager hit 568 runs and took 63 wickets that season. In the club’s first post-war game, at Arthington, he hit an unbeaten 60, took one wicket and two