Meeting date: 13 April 2002
Guest Speaker: Douglas Miller
Grace
The Rev. David Brown said, Grace.
Menu
Another splendid mouth-watering lunch was again enjoyed by all and produced by our Steward, Dick Orders:
Venison Pate – Served with Toast and a Cumberland Sauce
Fillet of Herring – Madeira Sauce with a Red Onion Confit
Breast of Guinea Fowl – Wrapped in bacon nested on Roasted Vegetables with a Port Jus
A selection of English Cheese and Biscuits
Coffee & Mint
Apologies had been received
Lord Alexander, Alistair MacLennan, Nigel Scott-Miller, Christine Pardoe and family, Keith Hayhurst, Chris de Mellow, Peter Thompson, Jocelyn Goldsworthy, Alan Edwards, David Pope and Christopher Bazalgette.
Next Lunch
Saturday, 26 October 12.30 for 1 pm
Contact: Dick Orders to book your place on 02392 632 692
Committee Re-election
President Ashley Mote – all willing to stand again
Treasurer Neil Jenkinson
Steward Dick Orders
Secretary David Allen – wishes to stand down
Penny Taylor has offered to take over
All voted in unanimously.
David Allen, who will continue as an active member of the club, was thanked for the enormous hard work he had put into the Club since it had restarted in 1999.
Subscriptions/Membership
It was agreed to retain the same level of subscription for the 206th consecutive year – 3 guineas.
Members were asked to pay the Treasurer and to ensure that their contact details are correct and with our Secretary.
Presentation
A cheque for £75 to Alldown Sports in Havant was presented to Christopher Tait who was our project competition winner. The cheque was accompanied by a promise by Gordon Downham to increase the value of his award by discounting the goods Christopher selected and he was generous to a fault. Christopher has written a charming letter of thanks to the President.
The Speaker
Ashley Mote introduced Douglas Miller, who claimed to be semi-self-unemployed or semi-retired – depending on your point of view.
Douglas’s proudest cricket moment was not on the field of play – but winning the Council of Cricket Societies quiz in the millennium year.
Douglas has written articles for various journals and books, on the History of Monks Risborough CC, a History of the Cricket Grounds of Gloucestershire, and is currently working on a history of Buckinghamshire County CC.
Douglas Miller entertained the members with tales of his lifetime involvement with cricket – his early memories of matches:
Attending his first match – Lancashire – v – Somerset game at Old Trafford in 1946 of which Geoff Edrich is the sole surviving player; his first test match at the Oval in 1947 – where Hutton made 83 and Compton 53; seeing Bradman make 133 at Old Trafford in 1948 at a benefit for Washbrook. Ikin made 99 and Douglas can remember him now, playing out a maiden over from Doug Ring, and then Lindwall took the new ball and bowled him.
Douglas went on to talk about his recent trip (his 5th) to India. Attendance of support from the UK was very low – barely 100 at Mohali and around 300 on the two visits to Ahmedabad. This he thought was mainly due to concerns over health; uncertainty after 11 September; the controversy over Mike Denness in South Africa and the maverick behaviour of Mr. Dalmiya; the fact that the Indians left it very late to decide where the matches would actually be played and whether or not Verinder Sehwag would be selected to play.
Driving was on the left – mostly – there was no road rage, no fast cars, juggernauts, or new cars. Other trips made were: by coach, around the slums of Old Delhi and the strangely deserted area of the government centre of New Delhi, designed by Edward Lutyens in the 1920s; by train, an experience in itself, to see the Taj Mahal and Agra and the uninhibited toiletry habits of fellow travellers; by train to Chandigarh and the splendid Mohali ground; by coach to Shimla, in the company of Glenda Hegg, mother of Warren, and spotted children playing cricket with the stumps chalked on the wall of the Christian church; by elephant in the pink city of Jaipur, riding up to Amber Fort; to Ahmedabad – in the dry state of Gujerat with a dingy duty free bar set up in the basement of the hotel where lager could be bought to drink in the privacy of ones room; to Udaipur – a city with a superb array of man-made lakes that have been used in the filming of James Bond; and finally, a tour around Mumbai (previously Bombay) and a visit to the home of Mahatma Ghandi which is now Museum – in the capable hands of a driver rejoicing in the name of Laxman.
Douglas was particularly touched by the appalling poverty of many of the Indians and huge numbers of Bangladeshis living in Jaipur.
Ashley Mote thanked Douglas for entertaining us and for being the only member to speak so publicly and graphically about bodily functions!
News of Overseas Members
A letter from Nigel Scott-Miller sharing his memories of being at the Oval in 1948, as a sixteen-year-old, when England scored 52, stirred up by the notes from Lord Alexander’s presentation at the previous lunch.
Having been introduced to Sir Donald Bradman, together with the 1948 Invincibles, just before the Oval Test Nigel recounted vivid memories of Don Tallon’s wonderful catch to dismiss Len Hutton for 30. Other highlights are Lindwell’s wonderful bowling – 6 -32 and Morris’s big score of 196 and Hollies’ dismissal of The Don for 0.
Nigel and his wife Jan had attended the moving unveiling of a bronze statue of Sir Donald Bradman at the Bradman Museum at Bowral. Nigel has donated a bench to the Museum, located about 10 feet from Bradman’s statue, and dedicated it to his boyhood heroes – Keith Miller and Denis Compton.
Publications
Our members continue to add to the growing list of definitive works about cricket. Recent publications have included:
At the Heart of English Cricket by Stephen Chalke – which won him the Book of the Year Award at the Cricket Society Literary Awards in 2001;
History of Lancashire CCC by Keith Hayhurst;
History of the I’Anson League, by Graham Collyer;
Aylward’s Great Innings’ 1777 by Roy Clarke with a Foreword by Hambledon Club President, Ashley Mote;
David Rayvern-Allen will launch his new book, Arlott & Ackroyd – A Celebration of Cricket on 10 July at the Bat & Ball.
New Website
Check out our new website – address at the bottom of the page – many more to be added – contributions and pictures are welcomed! (This website was deleted Oct 2012.)