Meeting date: 6 October 2012
Guest Speaker: Robin Brodhurst
Grace:
Our Chaplain, The Reverend David Brown said, Grace.
The President, Douglas Miller, welcomed all members and their guests.
Apologies for Absence:
Derek and Jane Andrews, Roy Birch, Robert Brooke, Ray Cook, Chris de Mellow, Alan Edwards, John Fingleton, Brian Ford, Stephen Green, Neil & Jilly Jenkinson, Bill Kempton, Innes Marlow, Richard Pettifer, Andrew Renshaw, David Robinson, Peter & Bobby Tomkins, Wilfred Weld, Ken Williams.
Prize Draw:
DM reminded everyone to put their place names in the containers provided for the prize draw, for collection by our Steward, Dick Orders.
Next Speaker:
DM announced David Frith would speak at our Spring luncheon on 6 April 2013. Depending upon cricket fixtures, Charlotte Edwards MBE, England’s Cricket Captain, will hopefully be speaking to our members at our Autumn 2013 luncheon.
Hambledon Club Youth Cricket donations, Stephen Toogood:
Stephen Toogood, Colts Co-ordinator at Hambledon Cricket Club. Stephen said he is always very grateful for the donation made by the Hambledon Club and spoke of the achievements of the Colts this season. Probably being the Club’s most successful ever season, 5 teams won their respective leagues with over 130 colts members aged between 6 and 16. However, the most notable achievement this year is that the Under 15 team made it to the National Under 15s Finals Day, losing to Bath in the semi-final. To qualify they won the Hampshire Cup and the London and South East Regional competition.
Dave Allen, Cage Cricket:
Dave put forward Cage Cricket as another possible beneficiary for donations which was fully welcomed and agreed upon by the President. (http://www.cagecricket.com). Dave informed the members that while Hampshire has a fine Academy and has produced a number of fine young cricketers, he said not one comes from inner-city Portsmouth or Southampton. Further, not one of the clubs in the top two divisions of the Southern League is from either city. This Charity was developed in Portsmouth, now in Southampton in which the local Solent University are involved. There is also a Cage at the Ageas Bowl. Where a Cage exists, a Kit Bag costs between £500-£1000. Where Cages do not exist, fund-raising is in progress. For these reasons, he has become an advocate for the Cage Cricket initiative. Further information can also be found in ‘Articles’ on the Club’s new website at: http.//www.thehambledonclub.co.uk
Administration:
- Website update: The secretary spoke to members about the new website and the technical incompatibilities which some members are experiencing. Unfortunately, while website and browser technologies do not advance at the same rate, it is important to keep computers updated with newer versions of software to assist in the access to the new site. However, before next Spring she was hoping to find a resolution to these problems. To this effect, she asked all members who use email to please try and connect to the new site and let her know the specific problems they may be experiencing.
- Ties are available for £15 each from the Treasurer, Stephen Saunders.
- Meal payment reminder: Please make payment direct to the Bat & Ball before leaving.
Prize Draw in support of the Hambledon Club Youth Cricket:
The customary draw – won by a guest, Martin Dewdney – raised £240. From club funds,£500 was given to the Cage Cricket initiative and presented to Dave Allen after lunch (click here for a photograph).
Members’ Publications:
DM mentioned Neil Jenkinson’s new book, C.B. Llewellyn: A Study in Equivocation (Lives in Cricket). He said it is fresh off the press and assures it will be a first-class book which will be of infinite interest to all club members.
The Loyal Toasts:
DM asked members to be upstanding for the traditional toasts: The Queen’s Mother; The King; The Hambledon Club; Cricket; The immortal memory of Madge. Andrew Bruce asked members to toast Mr President.
The Speaker:
The President introduced the guest speaker, Robin Brodhurst.
RB: I feel wholly inadequate standing in front of this distinguished audience to talk about my grandfather. There are people here who probably know far more about him than I do, but I hope that I can add some insight to the generally known detail. I want to try to split this talk into two distinct parts: 1. Cricket; 2. Other interests.
Harry was born in November 1888, the younger son of Lt. Gen. Sir Edward Altham (1856-1943). Sir Edward, known throughout the family as “The General”, had had a distinguished military career, which had supposedly come to an end in 1911 when he was appointed to be in charge of administration in Southern Command. However, in 1915 he was dug out of this job and sent to Gallipoli to take command of the chaotic administration and the Lines of Communication. This he did with conspicuous success, and he then did the same in Egypt in 1916, moving to India as Quartermaster General until 1919, finally retiring in 1920. He went to live in Winchester and remained Colonel-in-Chief of his old regiment, The Royal Scots, until close to his death in 1943. He was a constant figure in Harry’s early life despite frequent absences on duty, and Harry undoubtedly got much of his joie de vivre from the General.
In 1917, on leave from war service Harry married Alison Livingstone-Learmonth, who had been born in Australia, but came to England as an infant. The sainted Allison lived all her life in Winchester after being married and they produced three children: Betty, Dick and my mother. Dick played a few games for Oxford University in 1947 and the Free Foresters in 1948. My mother married my father in 1946, and in the words of the address at my father’s funeral “were father-in-law and son-in-law ever better suited?”
Harry was educated at Repton, going there in 1902, and was in the cricket XI for four years, 1905-08. In other words, he stayed at Repton until he was nearly 20 – almost unthinkable today. Repton has a proud cricket tradition – 132 have played first-class cricket, ranging from Lionel Palairet to Chris Adams, and ten have played for England, one for South Africa. In his first year in the XI, he was captained by JN Crawford whom he ever afterwards thought of as the greatest schoolboy cricketer ever, and who remained an influence on him for much of his youth. I have two postcards sent to his sister. The first is from May 1905 saying “Fry is a marvel. He is bound to come off against Australia. 2nd XI match is on Tuesday upon which much depends. I am playing brilliantly in the nets but can’t get a run, so am almost in despair. My luck must change soon.” I suspect that every person in this room can identify with that! Fry incidentally did not play in the 1st Test, but played in all the other four and averaged 58, second only to FS Jackson. Then what can only be a couple of weeks later Harry sent a second card “Am in decent form, but was bowled all over by Crawford yesterday. He is nearly as marvellous as the Australians.” The writing is only marginally easier to read than it became in later years when it resembled a drunken spider crawling across the page. Harry captained the side in 1907 and 1908, opening the innings throughout both years, and in both scored the most runs for the side. That side in 1908 has claims to be the strongest school side ever as 6 of them were asked to play first-class cricket that summer – four actually did. His highest score for Repton was 150* v the Old Reptonians in 1908, against, among others JN Crawford during a rest day in a Test Match. Harry had played for Surrey II in 1907 and did so again in 1908, including scoring 132 v Berkshire and then made his first-class debut for Surrey against Leicestershire in August. He batted at no. 6, scoring 35, only headed by Tom Hayward’s 38 as Surrey were bowled out for 184. It was a strong Surrey team – Hobbs, Hayward, Ernest Hayes, JN Crawford as captain, JW Hitch and Herbert Strudwick, those 6 who played for England and all plus one other who were Wisden Cricketers of the Year. In the Leicestershire side were Ewart Astill, John King and AE Knight. He went up to Trinity College Oxford as an Exhibitioner and played for the University in all four years, winning a blue in 1911 and 1912. He never scored many runs in either year, but Oxford won in 1911, partly through his 47 in the second innings, but they lost in 1912. In the remainder of the summer of 1911, Harry played no more first-class cricket, but in 1912 he played the rest of the season – eight matches – for Surrey. It’s interesting to see which sides he played against: Notts., Middlesex, twice, Yorkshire, Warwickshire, and slightly easier, Hants and Essex.
History does not relate to what he did after the cricket season of 1912, but in May 1913 he was appointed to be an assistant master at Winchester College. He remained there apart from war service, for the rest of his life. So the summers of 1913 and 1914 were spent coaching at that glorious College ground, New Field. This probably explains why he did not play for Surrey in either 1913 or 1914, although the latter may well be due to the international crisis developing.
He volunteered for the army in 1914 and served for four years on the Western Front. He was commissioned into the 60th Rifles (King’s Royal Rifle Corps), winning a DSO and MC, as well as three mentions in despatches. As a family we have never been able to ascertain any details about these; most of the records are either destroyed or nebulous. Certainly, he ended up at a Corps HQ, but the MC, we know, was awarded at Brigade HQ, very much in the front line. He also wrote regularly to his parents and fiancé, and those letters that survive are fascinating. He longed to be back at Winchester, writing “Does that Gilbert Ashton still plays the cut too early? What would I give for one more season of good cricket?”
On return from the Western Front, he qualified for Hampshire by residence and played for them in August from 1921 until 1923, a total of 24 matches. Again, it is interesting to see who Hants’ opponents were. They were not weak sides: Yorks., Notts., Kent, Surrey and Middlesex each year. His highest score (and only century) was 141 in 3 ½ hours against Kent at Canterbury in 1921, characterised by many shots lofted over the infield off Freeman and Wooley. He played once more for the Gentleman of England in 1931 v the New Zealand touring side.
So that was his whole first-class career: 55 matches, just over 1500 runs at an average of just under 20 – nothing very special. It was after this that he made his mark in the cricket world in other areas.
He was President of many clubs:
- MCC (1913); Free Foresters (1912); Harlequins (1910); IZ (1923); Cryptics (1914); Hampshire Hogs (1928); Frogs (1909); Repton Pilgrims (1921) – an original member;
- Green Jackets (1919); Googlies (1932); Forty Club (1943).
- Honorary members: Butterflies (1922); Marlborough Blues (1934); Old Wykehamists (1934).
- Club President: Hampshire: 1947 to his death, having served on the committee since1940
- MCC: 1959-60 serving on the main committee from 1940 to his death
- OU Authentics: 1954 to his death
- Repton Pilgrims: 1937-39
- Hampshire Hogs: 1958
- Club Cricket Conference: 1957
- Cricket Society: 1961
For all of these clubs, whether President or simply a member, he was prepared to put in time and energy. While he might not play for all of them in his summer holidays, he always played on the Harlequins tour. He never missed an August tour between 1911 and 1939, managing the tour 1929-39. He made his first century for them in 1911 and the highest score of his life – 236* v The Mote at Maidstone in 1920. Those who went on the tour, and they were often the very best Oxford cricketers, always talked about his captaincy and his management of the whole tour as being very special, making sure that all were involved yet nobody dominated proceedings. As President of those clubs he always, if possible, chaired the AGM, doing so with unfailing courtesy and understanding. He also spoke at a vast number of cricket dinners, becoming one of the most sought-after and admired speakers. Whether it was the Yorkshire Centenary Dinner in 1963, the annual Hampshire dinner – and may I recommend the extract from his speech at the Championship dinner of 1962 on the Club website – or a local village club, all received the same effort – indeed the village dinner probably more, as he researched the history and present details so that those who should receive a mention got one. It is said that in the later years of his life he was visiting the North of England and talked to three different audiences: the sixth form boys of a grammar school, the members of the county cricket club, and the inmates of the city gaol. Each address was quite different and each was rapturously received.
More importantly than the playing side of cricket was his move into what might be called administration. He had finished teaching at Winchester in 1949, aged 61, having come out of his boarding house in 1947. He was, in his own words, “constitutionally gaga.” He remained for the rest of his life in a College house, never actually owning his own property, on the grounds that he was a careers officer, and available to stand in if someone was absent. At an age when most of us are happy to live a quiet life he was able to immerse himself in affairs at Lord’s, becoming Treasurer in 1950, only, as I understand it by a single, casting vote, and he remained in that post until 1963. The Treasurer is effectively the senior honorary position at Lord’s after the President and always stands in for him when the latter is away. He provides the continuity alongside the Secretary. Harry did so marvellously, working closely with Ronnie Aird and Billy Griffith. He also became the Chairman of the MCC Youth Cricket Association in 1952, organising hundreds of coaching courses at Lilleshall, possibly his most important contribution to cricket. He was a founder of ESCA and president 1951-57, through which he set out to make cricket and cricket grounds available to the young all through the country. He stood down as Treasurer in 1959-60 when he was President of the MCC, and it was at his instigation (and that of Gubby Allen) that Don Bradman was asked to come over to Lord’s for the ICC meeting and thrash out the whole question of throwing. That momentous meeting effectively outlawed dubious actions and put an end to the throwing controversy (at least for40 years or so, until the advent of Muralitharan). Between 1947 and his death he chaired the MCC Arts and Library committee, always referred to at home as the Arts and Knitting committee, and did much to keep the Library at Lord’s and its art collection up to date. There are others here who will know much more than me about his role here.
In 1954 he was persuaded, much against his will, to be chairman of the Selectors. Until David Graveny he was the only chairman never to have played test cricket. At the time, and since, this appointment has been criticised on those grounds, but he has been defended by many such as Doug Insole who described him as among the best chairmen ever. His brief was to pick the side against Pakistan, who were touring that year, but more importantly to pick the side to tour Australia to defend the Ashes won in 1953 by Len Hutton’s side. It was a desperately wet summer, and having won the 1st test the Pakistanis managed to escape with draws in the next two, and then won the last at the Oval, allowing Harry regularly to comment that he was the only chairman who had ever lost a test to the Pakistanis. Much of the summer was taken up with experimentation and the blooding of young players. Hutton was injured and David Shepherd was captained for two matches. All this was grist to the mill of his detractors. However, his key job was to select the side to go to Australia and that was a triumph. My father picked him up at Winchester station when he came back from the final meeting and as they stopped at the traffic lights at the bottom of the hill outside the station, Harry held out a piece of paper with 17 names on it. “I thought you might like to see this,” he said, “Particularly the two names at the bottom.” They were Colin Cowdrey and Frank Tyson. Probably no other two did more to win that Ashes series. His motto, not original to him I suspect, was “Form is temporary; class is permanent.” Predictably Fred Trueman has criticised the selection as he was not chosen, claiming this was simply the snobbery of the MCC against a working-class Yorkshire man. He had not had a successful tour of the West Indies the previous winter, being unfairly blamed for many of the incidents that occurred, but I have no doubts in my mind that if Len Hutton had really wanted him he would have been chosen. As it was, the opening pair of Tyson and Statham won the series after a disastrous opening match at Brisbane. Harry’s selections were totally justified, and by my desk, I have a photograph of the pavilion at Lord’s flying the MCC flag on a cold February day in celebration – ordered aloft by Harry!
Then there was his writing. This started, family lore has it, in order to pay for a nanny for my mother. Originally there was a collection of articles in The Cricketer, solicited by Plum Warner, starting in May 1922, and running for 91 episodes until August 1925. They grew into the volume, A History of Cricket, published by Allen & Unwin in 1926 – note the indefinite article. When the publishers asked for an update in the late 1930s, he sought the help of the young up-and-coming journalist EW Swanton. While Harry rewrote much of his earlier material, Jim worked on the period after 1930, and it was re-published in 1938, 1947, 1948 and 1962. The volume was the first real attempt at a history of the game since Charles Box had written one in 1877, and it is an unashamedly “romantic” history. It concentrates on what might be called “the kings and queens”, rather than the spread of the game. It concentrates almost exclusively on cricket in England aside from accounts of tours, and his account of Hambledon and the origins of cricket have by now become rather discredited, BUT the volume is beautifully written, and as an example of his writing his description of Don Bradman from an article in The Cricketer in 1941, remains to be the best description of that genius. May I just quote one passage:
“I am the happier now for having seen WG bat and Kortwright bowl, for having fielded to Ranji and Archie MacLaren, and for having been comprehensively bowled by Colin Blythe. But in the many pictures that I have stored in my mind from the “burnt-out Junes” of forty years, there is none more dramatic or compelling than that of Bradman’s small, serenely moving figure in its big-peaked green cap coming out of the pavilion shadows into the sunshine, with the concentration, ardour and apprehension of surrounding thousands centred on him, and the destiny of a Test Match in his hands.”
He was also the joint author of the official history of Hampshire- Hampshire County Cricket – in 1957, as well as the main driving force behind the MCC Cricket Coaching Book, first published in 1952. May I commend to you the section on the captaincy and his list of the sovereign virtues of a captain: unselfishness and encouragement? Even more than the techniques of the game the spirit of the game moved him. He recognised that character can make or mar a cricketer (or a person), and while there was nothing sentimental in his attitude, he insisted that cricket, and life, could not be enjoyed without good manners or without good humour. That elusive equation between courtesy and aggression, between generosity and casual folly, between dourness and laughter, was as nearly solved by Harry as by any other cricketer who has ever lived. I would guess that Andrew Strauss probably has read it, while Kevin Pietersen has not!
That is Harry’s cricket life, but there was far more to him than that. First and foremost he was a schoolmaster at Winchester for all of his working life. Here he found supreme happiness and fulfilment. For over 50 years he infected young Wykehamists with his own vitality and optimism, and with his simple belief that life was for living and was to be lived with zest, courage and conviction. He moved into a boarding house in 1927. He would in normal circumstances have retired from there after 15 years in 1942, but the war meant he stayed on until 1947. He was a wonderful paterfamilias to the young junior in his house: friendly and gay (in the proper sense of that misappropriated word) approachable and kind, quick to censure slackness or conceit, but sympathetic and understanding to the diffident and shy. While he loved to win every cup that was on offer, notably the cricket and football ones, he liked particularly to win the cups where the greatest number of boys were involved, and where character, effort and stoutness of heart counted for more than the ability of one or two individuals. Drill Cup and the Steeplechase Cup were the ones he loved to have. If this all sounds rather Spartan, then Athens kept breaking in with enthusiasm and cheerfulness. While he loved the early books of the Aeneid, particularly the games in the Fifth Book, he delighted in the intellectual exercise of producing a vigorous as well as an accurate version, and his praise was always unstinted for any especially felicitous version. Boys in his house would often ask for help in prep over a difficult line, and this help might lead to the sporting of the whole passage – the stubby fingers almost obscuring the text, and the deep voice rumbling out the phrases of a passage he probably knew by heart. So the Classics were a deep love. Perhaps because of this very intensity, Harry’s enthusiasms were deeply channelled rather than wide-ranging. Chinese ceramics, Gothic cathedrals and Shakespeare; these he loved with his whole soul, and he passed on his delight in them to generation after generation of boys with never-wearying enthusiasm.
He owned a small collection of outstanding Chinoiserie – including a fabulous Ming horse – known to the family as the pings and the pongs. He would expound on them if you wanted to know about them, but only if you really wanted to know. He had a love for good silver, particularly trifid spoons, and every morning I use his 17th-century milk jug. His stamp collection had started very early and consisted of Cape Colony triangular – a small but specific market. He taught me very early, and I can hear him saying it, that if you are going to collect, then collect whatever it is properly. He knew every inch of Winchester Cathedral and edited The Winchester Cathedral Record from 1948. He was a brilliant guide to the cathedral, taking parties, particularly of the young, round it with evident enthusiasm, stopping always at the tomb of Arnold de Gaveston, father of Piers Gaveston, explaining that here was the father of one of the founders of English cricket. The thought of the young Edward II and Piers Gaveston indulging in a single wicket match in the Weald of Kent pleased him mightily: “a well-matched couple” he would chuckle, “but I think my money would have been on the Plantagenet.” He loved the story of William Walker the diver who literally saved the Cathedral with his own hands. I can still recall standing with him outside the East End and him saying “Here you can see an example of every important style of English medieval architecture.” He would then give an expert survey, century by century of the various developments and refinements. It was spell-binding. Few could expound to him on Shakespeare. He loved nothing more than to talk long into the night about his favourite plays. How he would have loved the recent BBC versions of Henry IV.
Broad-Halfpenny Down last staged a first-class match in 1781 when the Hambledon Club moved to Windmill Down, and then a match was staged here in 1908 between an England XI and Hambledon, captained by Edward Whalley-Tooker, a descendant of one of the original Hambledon players. After that match, the ground reverted to farmland until it was bought by Winchester College in 1925, who still own the freehold. Is it too much to think that Harry had a hand in persuading the Bursar, and then the Governing Body, that they should purchase it? I have not been able to discover the answer to that, but I like to think that he was heavily involved, along with his great friend Rockley Wilson. Certainly, he regularly came here, usually on the car journey to the United Services Ground at Portsmouth. John Arlott tells of one such trip:
We pulled up beside The Bat and Ball and walked out across the legendary pitch on Broad-Halfpenny Down. We were about the centre of the wicket when his eyes lit up with all their characteristic, eager fire, his lower lip stiffened, as it always did when he was most animated, and he said, “Look – look at that slope down the hill. When one of the great ones – Beldham or Small – really got it in the middle and it went down there – when all hits were run out – how many runs do you think they made? – and how good a thrower must the deep-fielder have been to throw it back up that slope after chasing it down to the bottom?” We assumed – mutually, I have always hoped – that the question was rhetorical. He drew a deep breath and said, “What air – what air to breathe?” His eyes lit up again – they were the true reflection of his vitality – and he looked across the Downs as spiritedly and familiarly as if he were one of the original Hambledonians, which at heart he was.
How to summarise him? Harry was a good cricketer, and a superb administrator, who wrote like an angel, but more important than any of these he was a great human being with the ability to put across his enthusiasms, particularly to the young. He has a number of memorials, at the College, in the Cathedral, and two paintings of him at Lord’s, but probably the best one is in the Memorial Gallery at Lord’s, alas usually hidden during Test Matches by a large display. It is on the steps as you go upstairs. It is a stone memorial plaque, cut from Thomas Lord’s gravestone at West Meon and inscribed: “He served the game with distinction as historian, administrator, player and coach, and concerned himself, especially with young cricketers.” Humanitas, Sedulitas, Auctoritas – which I shall translate for the benefit of any old Etonians here at present: Humanity, Conscientiousness, Authority. Thank you very much.
Through extremely appreciative applause, DM thanked Robin for speaking to us today.
Thanks:
DM also thanked the Bat & Ball staff for a very good luncheon, and for looking after our members.
Any Other Business:
None
Date of next meeting:
6 April 2013