Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

His all-round skills – there were few matches where he failed to contribute to the outcome in terms of runs added or dismissals achieved – indicate a man of energetic disposition. Indeed the full story of his life, including his travels when a young man, suggests a character who filled ‘the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run’, the Kipling phrase so much a manly precept of his era. In his time, professional cricketers on retirement typically became publicans, or coaches at public schools, or sports outfitters. Hayes, apparently adaptable and adventurous, undertook all three of these activities after 1920: for about ten years two of them concurrently. He was still ‘in harness’ at his Norwood pub shortly before his death at the age of 77. The commercial background of his upbringing on the Old Kent Road thus had its legacy. His distinguished war record and his rise to commissioned officer status suggest that he was a man of considerable leadership qualities. Had injury not supervened and had conventions been different, he might well have been the appointed Surrey captain from 1919; as it was the Surrey club availed itself of his skills only rarely and in emergencies, recognising his merits even before the Great War. The confident tone of his scrapbooks suggests clarity of thought which would have helped him motivate mature players and develop the talents of apprentices. His coaching tenures both at Leicester and Kennington were perhaps short, but there can be little doubt that he brought on the batsmen among his charges. Albert Craig, the Surrey rhymester and supporter of Hayes’ benefit in 1908, regularly told his listeners that all the players were gentlemen and all the gentlemen were players. Hayes was one of many for whom the distinction between amateur and professional was immaterial: indeed his obituaries underscored the point. Wisden carefully avoided any prefix to his name: The Times, perhaps acknowledging that he was ‘officer material’, awarded him a proper heading ‘Mr E.G.Hayes.’ It had been a long journey from Peckham to Norwood. Homecoming 117