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

69 noted in cricket dressing-rooms for joviality, a sense of fun and often practical jokes. His philosophy of life regarding cricket is expressed in his notes. “Cricket is a game to be encouraged at all levels. A character builder (not as we see some of the big professional matches played). But I hope it will become more under control and back to the real spirit of the game which is played on the village green – when we can say this is cricket or this is not cricket, meaning this is good or this is bad. Cricket is a way of life and you get obsessed with it, but I think it is for good. You could get obsessed with many other things which will not give as much pleasure and make as many friends. Music, I think, goes with cricket – it helps to relax you. Many of my best friends are cricketers and love music.” Johnny’s decorum and behaviour – never swearing, for example – became a role model for fellow players and those he coached. Johnny’s own career with so few injuries was no accident. His whole lifestyle was part of this great example to others that he set. He always looked after himself. It was not just that he didn’t drink or smoke. He would go to bed early on an evening. He ate a generally healthy diet, which son Stephen tells me was largely facilitated from the time of his marriage by Mary’s cooking – and this was an extra reason why he liked to have the family down with him in the caravan when he was playing at Somerset for example. He was most particular about keeping himself fit. Mary told Stephen: “Even when I first married him he was already a fitness fanatic.” He believed fitness to be mainly match fitness and this ‘fanaticism’ did not blind him to the perils of extreme fitness regimes – such as when an Army fitness ‘expert’ came to Somerset in the early 1950s and actually caused players who were not up to the rigours to break down. He believed that even the National Fitness Centre at Lilleshall employed regimes which could only be described as torture and that fitness, life style, et cetera would – like other things in life – respond far better to encouragement A man of his times who became a role model for other players