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

71 He was strongly anti-alcohol – far more for health and personality development reasons than from an ivory tower morality – and when in the 1950s there were cartoons of players in the newspapers giving tips on how to improve – Johnny’s number one tip was to ‘keep off the booze’. These are just examples of how he lived his life. Johnny had an inspired attitude towards the human condition. Coloured by his Methodist background, he strongly believed in a fair and equitable society – and extended this into sport and into cricket in particular. Roy Smith, his friend and playing colleague at Somerset, in particular, explained to me how he tried to copy his role model as far as possible. Johnny was a good family man and a cheerful encourager wherever he went. He loved music and loved playing the organ and the piano. His daughter Susan describes how fond the family were of a popular cricket calypso song that was often played on the radio and would join in the singing whenever it was played. Presumably this was Egbert Moore’s ‘Cricket, lovely cricket’ which sang the praises of those ‘two little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine’. Johnny, rather than being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, was quite a master of all the many avenues that he ventured into in his life. Another area of his proficiency was cricket pitch preparation. He is cited by Gavin Turner as having solved a problem for Somerset in the Bath Festival Week in 1953. The low lying ground at the Rec (recreational ground) at its worst was liable to severe flooding and at the best of times was challenging to a groundsman to provide a good wicket. This year the wicket had completely been relaid. The first match against Lancashire had been a disaster for Somerset, losing quickly by an innings, and for the groundsman and presumably for the potentiality of getting a good attendance over the three days. In fact it was one those rarities – a first-class match begun and finished in one day. The following match against Kent was endangered. Evidently by proposing to roll a mixture of marl and water into the wicket Johnny had proposed to A man of his times who became a role model for other players