The ivy climbs by brick and stone

The ivy climbs by brick and stone

About the buttressed Hall;

So memory weaves a charm to keep

Her servitors in thrall.

The Leopard Song, Percy Shaw Jeffrey

Hi everyone!

And hello from the Skinners’ Hall, 8½ Dowgate Hill, by the side of Cannon Street station in the City.

 

Developing from the medieval trade guild of furriers and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1327, the Skinners’ Company is one of the ‘Great Twelve’ livery companies of London. 

At Sixes and Sevens

In an ancient dispute between the Merchant Taylors and Skinners, the two guilds, founded in the same year, argued over sixth place in the order of precedence. In 1484, after more than a century of bickering, the Lord Mayor of London decided  they would swap between sixth and seventh place and feast in each other's halls. Nowadays, they alternate in precedence on an annual basis.

Today Skinners is a major not-for-profit organisation involved in running sheltered housing and grant programmes for individuals, educational institutions and a wide range of small organisations throughout the UK.

And mostly importantly in running schools, one of which is the Skinners’ School in Tunbridge Wells where I was a pupil in the 1960s.

I was very pleased when a few months ago Peter Williams asked me to go with him to the 125^th Anniversary Dinner of the Old Skinners’ Society.

Along with the Young Man and Troupie, Peter is one of my three friends from St Mark's Primary School with whom I’m in regular contact.

All three are Founder Members of the Upper Banner Farm Cricket Club, which played in the field at the top of Farmcombe Road.

Peter and I met in 1958 and quickly became good friends; as did our parents.

Both only children, we played lots and lots of sport; team games such as cricket and one-to-one combat at tennis, table tennis and - of course – snooker at the Land Registry Club on Forest Road, where Peter’s father was a member.

Geography (Lowestoft for Peter and SE London for me; some excuse) and Life (no excuse !!)  have together conspired such that we have not seen each other that often in the last 30 years.

I hope that the Third Age years will encourage us to remedy that …

Reunion dinners always provide the opportunity for Nostalgia: OK, Nostalgia just isn’t what it was when I was a boy !!

Indeed memory weaves a charm to keep her servitors in thrall.

As I looked round the serried ranks of those in the Hall, I realised that 45 years on from leaving Skinners most of those present hadn’t even been born back in 1970.

I know I often say that: “I grew up on the Kent/Sussex border in Tunbridge Wells in the 1960s. It is just that the 1960s didn’t reach Tunbridge Wells”

And the truth is that they didn’t!

But Skinners gave me a tremendous education for the many years ahead.

As anyone can see from one of my regular train journeys from Bickley to London Blackfriars on the Catford Loop line or on the No. 7 bus from Chatsworth Square into Brighton, Britain has changed enormously in the last five decades.

And I guess – not least having been on Dianne’s Personal Improvement Programme for the last 35 years !! – I have too (OK, Dianne: plenty still to go at !!).

But I know too that much hasn’t really changed.

I started reading The Times in the 6^th Form (Years 12 & 13 for younger readers). In the last 16,000+ days there won’t have been many where I haven’t read the Columnists (from Bernard Levin to Danny Finkelstein), the Leaders, the Letters, the Obituaries and the Sports pages.

John Woodcock, the Sage of Longparish, was the Cricket Correspondent when I first started reading the cricket reports. Now in his 90^th year, he still writes occasional articles for the paper.

Cricket correspondents of the The Times 1954 - to date: 

Mike Atherton (left), John Woodcock, Alan Lee, Christopher Martin-Jenkins

And in the 1970s and 1980s there were regular reports from Alan Gibson on county matches in the West Country. You could always rely on a piece from Alan about a Gloucestershire match mentioning the GRIP: the Gloriously Red-headed Imperturbable Pamela, the barmaid in the main pavilion bar at the County Ground at Bristol.

Though they are only a very pale imitation of Alan’s articles, my own Blogs try to reflect his approach to cricket writing:  see Mrs Lambourne’s Luxury Cricket Picnics.

And for 25 years from 1970 to 1995 there was Robin Marlar in the Sunday Times.

Next year it will be 30 years since he wrote a wonderful article on 27 April 1986: Unplayable Jim and Unstoppable Bill about two former England cricketers who had died a few days previously.

Bill Edrich was a Test all-rounder whose career straddled WWII and continued until he was 55, when he finally gave up the captaincy of Norfolk.

But the heart of the article was about Jim Laker, who bowled off breaks for Surrey (1,944 wickets at 18.41) and for England (46 Tests, with 193 wickets at 21.24). In the 1956 Old Trafford Test v the Aussies he took 19 wickets for 90: no other bowler has ever taken more than seventeen wickets in a first class match.

Marlar too was an off-break bowler and a good one: 970 wickets in 289 matches at an average of 25.22. And 5 years as Captain of Sussex.

At first sight, Laker and Marlar might well not have been close friends.

Laker was born in Yorkshire into poverty, brought up by his aunts. An England regular for a decade, he played as a Professional.

Marlar went to Harrow and then Cambridge, where he was coached by Laker in 1952. He played as an Amateur. He would become President of Sussex and of the MCC

Moreover, as a City headhunter,  Marlar would have quickly spotted that there was a glaring gap in his CV:

Never played for England. 
Kept out of the team by Laker.

Almost 3 decades on from my first reading the article, I can remember what Marlar wrote:

As a player, as a commentator, as a coach, as a friend, Jim Laker was a special person, shrewd, funny and as dry as a Yorkshire twig.

He went on:

As one who bowled in his long shadow, I owe him that special debt of gratitude which comes from being taught a lesson for life.

Many people, thwarted in an ambition, come to take the view that the world is against them and, if the conviction feeds on itself, warping of personality is almost inevitable.

Any spin bowler trying to get into the England team when Laker was at his peak could have no argument with the selectors, no chip on the shoulder.

I wrote that Peter and I “played lots and lots of sport; team games such as cricket and one-to-one combat at tennis, table tennis and - of course – snooker at the Land Registry Club”.
Whatever the sport:  Peter was always Laker and I was always Marlar.

            I learnt: To play the very best you can - and still come 2^nd  !!

As The Leopard Song goes on to say:

Sing Leopards Sing

Floreat Sodalitas     (For non-Classicists: Let companionship flourish)

Little matter, well or ill,

Sentiment is more than skill.

 Sitting opposite Peter at dinner in the Skinners' Hall, now both well into our 60s and with half a century and more of friendship, I hope he knows what a special debt I owe him.

Peter plans to come and watch some cricket with me at Hove in Season 2016.

Why don't you come too ??

After all ….

Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can be in one. ^©

See you soon !!

Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace

Follow me on Twitter: LordRic52

PS

As for Bill Edrich, as well as playing 39 Tests and scoring 36,965 first class runs, he played football for Norwich City and Tottenham Hotspur.

Edrich (left) with Denis Compton playing for Middlesex v Sussex 
At Lords in 1948

In WWII he was a Squadron Leader in Bomber Command. On 12 August 1941 Edrich participated in a low-level daylight attack by Bristol Benheim bombers against power stations in the Cologne area, described by the Daily Telegraph as "the RAF's most audacious and dangerous low-level bombing raid". Of the 54 Blenheims sent on the mission, twelve were shot down. For his part in the war Bill was awarded the DFC.

Edrich wrote that he had "an immense relief that he survived" the war and as a result loved to party and lived for the day.

Marlar’s article concludes:  

I recall taking him home after one Lord's Taverners dance as dawn broke.

Down the path advanced his wife carrying what looked suspiciously like a hatchet.

I'm afraid it was a case of slip the clutch and away we go.

As the West Indian cricket writer CLR James famously wrote:

What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?