Lives in Cricket No 48 - Maurice Leyland

motor car during the early post-FirstWorldWar years. The couple met at Harrogate Cricket Club when Connie’s friend Gertie, later to become Mrs Maurice Miles, persuaded her to watch a game. Maurice was there and began talking to the girls. Eventually he asked Connie if he could see her home, she said yes, and that was that. It was love at first sight and though never publicly demonstrative no one who knew them ever doubted the couple’s devotion to each other. Maurice Miles, who celebrated his 100th birthday in the year 2000, became a firm friend of his namesake, who was six months his junior, and the two couples were to later spend many happy hours together - even if conversation was sometimes at a premium. “We would sometimes go walking together, me and Maurice, and not speak for an hour at a time,” recalled Mr Miles, “but it was never an uncomfortable silence.” As you would expect, the wedding was a happy event and, not surprisingly, had a distinctive cricketing flavour. Harrogate Cricket Club, loyally served by Maurice, his father, Ted, uncle Fred, great uncle Ralph Suttill and great uncles Tom and Richard Burgess for a combined period of more than 70 years, made a special presentation. A solid silver tea service and a cheque were presented to the couple and the inscribed tray that went with the service was later presented back to the club by the family. The happiness of Maurice’s special day with Connie was destined to be soon overshadowed by the news from Barnsley he was dreading. With prompt treatment para-typhoid is controllable and rarely fatal. But prompt treatment was not an option in the spring of 1928 and the jovial, hugely popular, Roy Kilner was to lose his battle against the infection. Still in isolation, at the Fever Hospital, he passed away on April 5. It hardly bears thinking about, but the tortuous three week journey from Patiala to Barnsley, during which Kilner suffered so much, could have been made today in around 12 hours. The news of the death was hard to bear for the Yorkshire club and its followers and Maurice Leyland, having spent the last few months of Kilner’s life in constant contact with him, was deeply saddened. With George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes, Herbert Sutcliffe, David Denton, Percy Holmes and Arthur Dolphin, Maurice was a coffin bearer at the funeral. With over 100,000 people lining the streets it was a day 1928, an unforgettable year 67