Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

47 Lawrence was a life-long socialist as well as being a devout Methodist. He had been – in the years leading up to World War Two – hugely influenced by that well-known Christian Socialist of the day Donald Soper and supported Peace News and – years later (long after the Second World War) he would support the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In latter times he would like the politics of Tony Benn, for example – as Malcolm Naylor told me. His politics were not sophisticated. He hated the difference between rich and poor and was always on the side of the poor. Johnny told Malcolm the story of when he was out walking and he was accidentally ‘trespassing’. The rich landowner said: “Get off my land. My father fought in the last war for it.” In a tone of obvious humour and without menace, Johnny replied: “Well, take thi’ coat off, and a’ll fight thi fo r’it.” This story may be apocryphal and pre-date Johnny but he was prepared to invoke it to his cause. He never however failed to enjoy being on friendly terms with folk from all classes, and had strong friendships with the likes of Tommy Hobson who sponsored the cricket clubs of Woodhouse Grange, Elvington and York; Harry Houseman, a rich farmer who sponsored Bolton Percy Cricket Club; Peter Brayshay, a cricket-playing carpet entrepreneur; and amateurs in the game such as future captains at Somerset including Ben Brocklehurst and Ronnie Burnet, his future captain at Baildon. He would have strongly agreed with the view that Soper forcefully expressed, that pacifism was a ‘way of life’, and that nonviolence was a ‘spiritual force’ working on behalf of what was good. ‘The stronger the opposition and the nearer the peril of war,’ Soper wrote later, ‘the clearer it became that personal rejection of war required a moral as well as an intellectual base.’ It was not enough to argue that war was impractical, or bad policy. Indeed, in the face of the rise of Nazism, a moral argument was crucial. ‘Armed violence against evil, however comprehensive and dastardly that evil may be, is not the way to overthrow it. It is finally impossible to cast out evil by evil, and the use of Saying no to war: a devout and principled man becomes a conscientious objector