Finally there was Matron Cryer, a veritable, and adorable, Florence Nightingale who never failed to make you feel better, and could even persuade you that the weekly dose of cod-liver oil tasted pretty good. I personally went for syrup of figs, which was a legitimate alternative and tasted much nicer. Her deputy, who later reigned for years as her successor as matron, was the indomitable Pauline, who was to become every bit as much an intrinsic part of Sunningdale as Mr Fox or any of the others. I suspect she enjoyed a bit of mischief too, and she and Roberta Wickham would have hit it off. Pauline was a great character, and before I left Sunningdale she gave me a photograph of the England side to tour Australia in 1928–29.
I may have missed one or two, but what fun it was. I lived in this milieu for five years, climbing my way up the pole under the auspices of the above-mentioned dramatis personae. I played in the cricket first eleven for four years – having moved fairly rapidly from being a leg-spinner to a wicketkeeper, and I think I could always bat a bit – and in the soccer team for two. I also played fives for the school, against Ludgrove, and we invariably lost. The only real blot was my consistent slacking on the academic side of things.
My years in the Sunningdale first eleven were fantastic fun. The star of the side was Edward Lane Fox and we not only played together in the first eleven for four years at Sunningdale, we also both played for Eton for three years. He was a wonderful all-round cricketer with the discipline I always lacked. Edward also won his colours at soccer and rugger, an impressive triple Blue. He was a remarkable games player, a cricketer who went on to play for Oxfordshire and for the Minor Counties against at least two touring sides and then became an estate agent, running his own eponymous firm with a brilliance few could have matched. He also hits a pretty mean golf ball. It would be hard to imagine a kinder, more charming and less pretentious man. He has never changed in character or in looks, and well into his seventies he is still easily identifiable as the chap sitting in the captain’s seat in the 1952 Sunningdale cricket eleven photograph. Edward was a wonderful orthodox left-arm spinner who bowled with great accuracy and turned the ball sharply away from the right-hander. The representatives of Earlywood, Scaitcliffe, St George’s, Lambrook, Heatherdown and a few other schools could make little of it. As a result, stumped Blofeld bowled Lane Fox was an oft-repeated dismissal.
Edward was also an excellent and solid left-hand batsman. The one school we had difficulty with was Ludgrove, who collectively played left-arm spin more than adequately. I think I am right in saying that the last time Sunningdale beat Ludgrove home and away in the same season was in 1952, which was Edward’s and my last year. Sunningdale may have started a trifle gloomily for me, but success on the playing fields turned it into huge fun, and rapidly put an end to all that silly homesickness.
I was given my first-eleven colours for cricket when the team photograph was about to be taken at the end of the 1950 summer term, my second year in the side. Later that afternoon I was ferried off by Mrs Fox to St George’s hospital in Windsor to have my tonsils removed. I remember Matron packing my new dark-blue cap, and when Mrs Fox unpacked my case at the hospital she thrust this cap under my pillow. When you got your colours this was the accepted modus operandi. The nursing sister was more than mildly surprised, but Mrs Fox pretty well told her to mind her own business. I never felt closer to her than I did at that moment, and I was able, with considerable pleasure, to try on the cap during the night. I had to wait until the chap with whom I shared a room, who probably wouldn’t have understood, was asleep.
What an adventure Sunningdale was and a splendid way to start learning about the highs and lows of life. In the schoolroom I was never remotely a candidate for a scholarship to anywhere except Borstal, but I suppose I did just about enough work to get by, and when I came to take Common Entrance to Eton, I achieved a humble middle fourth, which was lower than was hoped, but probably higher than was feared. I was never any good at exams. That rather apprehensive five-hour journey in my father’s old green Armstrong Siddeley at the start of May five years before had been well worth it. In the end Grizel had got it right, as she usually did.
Cricket had me in its grip before I had been at Sunningdale for a year. The following June, in 1948, I found myself at Lord’s with Tom and Grizel sitting on the grass in front of Q Stand eating strawberries they had brought up from Hoveton and watching the third day of the second Test against Australia. I became one of what is now a sadly diminishing band of people to have seen the great Don Bradman bat. He made 89 in Australia’s second innings before being caught at shoulder-height by Bill Edrich at first slip off Alec Bedser. I can still see the catch in my mind’s eye. As he departed, dwarfed by that wonderful and irresistible baggy green Australian cap, I was sad that he hadn’t got a hundred, but everyone else seemed rather pleased. I distinctly remember him facing Yorkshire’s Alec Coxon, a fast bowler playing in his only Test match. A number of times Coxon pitched the ball a little short, and Bradman would swivel and pull him to the straightish midwicket boundary, where we were sitting on the grass. Once I was able to touch the ball – what a moment that was.
It was not only at school that I revelled in cricket. In the Easter holidays I went to indoor coaching classes in Norwich taken by the two professionals who played for Norfolk : C.S.R. Boswell, a leg-spinner and late-middle-order batsman known to one and all as ‘Bozzie’, and Fred Pierpoint, a fastish bowler. Then, in the summer holidays, Grizel would heroically drive me to all parts of Norfolk, however inaccessible, for boys’ cricket matches in which I became a fierce competitor. We would set off in the morning in Grizel’s beetle Renault, with a picnic basket on the back seat. Grizel was nothing if not a determined driver. Whenever she changed gear it was as if she was teaching the gearstick a lesson, and she generally treated the car as if it was a recalcitrant schoolboy. Some of the lay-bys in which we stopped for lunch became familiar haunts over the years. A hard-boiled egg, ham sandwiches and an apple were the usual menu, and it never helped things along if I dropped small bits of eggshell on the floor.
The cricket usually began at about two o’clock, and I remember many of the mums being, if anything, rather more competitive than the players. There were certain key players in the teams I played for: Jeremy Greenwood bowled very fast, Michael Broke’s off-breaks took a long time to reach the batsman, Jeremy Thompson – whose father Wilfred had bowled terrifyingly fast for Norfolk and had captained the county – was another star, while Timmy Denny did his best. Henry and Dominic Harrod, sons of the famous economist Roy Harrod, had their moments, and the many Scotts all played their part, especially Edward, who bowled fast – we later played cricket together at Eton. He was a cousin of the Norfolk Scotts, although he lived in Gloucestershire, and was to become one of my greatest friends. The two Clifton Browns also contributed, and their mother scored like a demon in a felt hat.
The Norfolk Scotts lived at North Runcton, near King’s Lynn. Father Archie, as tall and thin as a lamp post, was the first Old Etonian bookmaker, and his delightful and cuddly wife Ruth was a huge favourite with all of us, forever laughing and always a fount of fun. She was also great friends with the Australian cricketers of Don Bradman’s generation and before. A particular ally was the famous leg-spinner Arthur Mailey, a great character and the most delightful of men. He had been a wonderful bowler, as well as being a brilliant cartoonist. For some reason he took a great interest in my future as a cricketer, and one of my proudest possessions is a booklet he wrote in 1956 called Cricket Humour, with some amusing stories illustrated with his own drawings. The front cover is a lovely cartoon of Mailey himself trying to bribe the umpire with a fiver. On the first page he wrote: ‘My best wishes for a successful cricket life. Saw you play at Runcton about 3 years ago and am very pleased about your progress. Arthur Mailey ’56.’ Later in life I put together a small collection of his original cartoons, and they are a great joy.
In between those holiday matches I would go to Lakenham cricket ground, with its handsome thatched pavilion, where Norfolk played their home games. Now I would be ticked off for spilling my picnic eggshells