Book Review: The Promise of Endless Summer - Cricket Lives from the Daily Telegraph edited by Martin Smith

I've always thought of obituaries in much the same way as funerals. When the person writing or speaking knew the subject, they tend to be more sincere, worthwhile and pertinent than when they are basing their words on second or third hand information.

As the editor, Martin Smith, points out in his foreword to this book, obituary notices until the mid-1980s were largely staid and dry, in the fashion of the times. You got a brief resume of the major career milestones and facts about the subject, but little that put flesh onto the bones as a good writer can do so well.

This collection of obituary notices from the pages of the Daily Telegraph is of cricketers who died from the start of that more descriptive period to the modern day and it is as fine a collection of writers and styles as you could wish for, Michael Henderson, Scyld Berry, E.W.Swanton, Tony Lewis, Simon Hughes and Michael Parkinson are all here, the writing almost - and that's quite a feat - as good as the cricket of their subjects.

All but one is effusive in its praise of the talents of the players concerned, the exception being Simon Hughes' piece on Sylvester Clarke, who he describes as the 'fastest, nastiest fast bowler who ever lived' and goes on to explain why. I suppose anyone who leaves you 'two millimetres of man-made fibre from death' has that kind of effect on you.

It is fine writing though, as is John Major's appreciation of Denis Compton, 'an Olympian of cricket'. There are numerous fine stories and the subjects are some of the greatest players and characters to set foot on a cricket ground, together with some of its finest characters. Perhaps the latter have the greater charm, such as reading how Bryan 'Bomber' Wells once bowled an over in the time it took the Worcester Cathedral clock to strike 12. When told by his captain that he was making the game look ridiculous and ordered to start his run from eight paces, rather than two, he did - but bowled the ball - on a length, mind - from well behind the stumps after taking only two...

Mark Nicholas' piece on Malcolm Marshall is a joy, the former Hampshire captain recounting how wicket-keeper Bobby Parks stood 31 paces back to him one day at Portsmouth, while Derbyshire fans will especially enjoy the piece on Eddie Barlow, who Charles Fortune once described as 'running up to bowl, looking like an unmade bed'. Those who saw 'Bunter' in action will enjoy that description as much as I did.

There is also an obituary for Derbyshire legend Les Jackson, who Donald Bradman felt one of the best bowlers he had faced in 1948, yet scandalously played only two Test matches in the next 13 years. His thirteen-pace run may have ended in a round-arm sling, but it took hundreds of wickets and saw him considered, in the words of Tom Graveney, 'the best bloody bowler in the country'.

In a book of such memorable writing, it could have been hard to have a favourite, but the inclusion of Michael Parkinson's outstanding piece on the former Derbyshire all-rounder George Pope makes this an easy decision for me. For years I had the press-cutting in a folder and now it serves as the concluding piece in a remarkable collection of writing.

Emphasising  my opening comments about the best writing coming from those who knew the subject, the Yorkshire broadcaster produced three pages of golden text about 'a man who a generation of cricketers will testify was the best bowler they ever faced'.

'I could bowl out England on this track' he would tell his league team, before going out with them to to take another six, seven or eight wickets with a bamboozling array of inswing, outswing, off-cutters and leg-cutters. A 'master of his craft' indeed.

Quite a character and bowler, George Pope, and quite a remarkable book. Aurum Press deserve every success with it and it should be a fixture on the bedside or coffee table of every cricket fan. Thanks to Jessica for the special offer for blog readers, which I would heartily recommend you take up.

The Promise of Endless Summer: Cricket Lives from the Daily Telegraph is published by Aurum Press.
  
To order a copy (9781781310489) for £11.99 including p&p, telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk, and quote offer code AUR349. Alternatively, send a cheque made payable to: Littlehampton Book Services Mail Order Department, Littlehampton Book Services, PO Box 4264, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3RB. Please quote the offer code AUR349 and include your name and address details. 
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