Lives in Cricket No 8 - Ernest Hayes

imperialism: ‘In the harbour area are two British gunboats just to remind the Sultan that we are his boss.’ After Mozambique, Chinde, Beira and Lourenço Marques, the German-owned vessel arrived at Durban, where Hayes left the ship. After visiting his brother Arthur’s grave in Pietermaritzburg, he continued his holiday with his friend Charlie Barton, at the isolated settlement of Nottingham Road, about seventy miles inland from Durban. He wrote: Here there is only the hotel & a store or two. Farms lay all around at various distances. Supposed to be one of the healthiest spots in Natal. Xmas Day we spent very quietly. We had a knockabout with a cricket ball in the morning and had a splendid Dinner, as near a Xmas Dinner as it was possible to get out here: included Turkey and Xmas Pudding. While here we were nearly every day to be out on horseback. Had some splendid rides over the hills. They have a fine polo team here and I saw them play a match at Mooi River which they won easily. In Durban while visiting his cousins, he met some of the local cricketers and joined the Wanderers Cricket Club. League matches were played over two Saturdays and consequently he was only able to play one of those, making 75 not out and four, but he did join a team styling itself the Nomads which went on a tour through the battlefields in the western part of Natal. Playing surfaces were less than immaculate. One ground, Hayes reports, had been used for camping and was consequently very rough. He finds some interest in places still showing traces of the ravages of the war, such as Ladysmith: . . . we passed Glencoe and other places where the war had been. Had a good look round Ladysmith and found it most interesting. The town hall has still its broken clock tower and two shells were embedded in the walls. The Royal Hotel too has great holes made by shells right thro’ the ceilings and walls. Hills surround the place & it is indeed wonderful how our soldiers held out so long, for the shelling must have been terrible . . . Leaving here as early as possible the train took us over Colenso Bridge, which had been broken down by the Boers and rebuilt by our people, also through Chievely the scene of Buller’s Camp, past the hill where the Boer guns were placed & which 40 Overseas Trips and Chaos at The Oval