Wodehouse At the Wicket

by P. G. Wodehouse

  But remoteness from regular cricket news caused Wodehouse some problems in understanding changes in the country of his birth and youth. Based in endlessly affluent America, he found this new Britain a strange place. In 1946 he wrote to Townend: ‘Clothes must be the devil of a business in England. How do cricket pros manage about white flannel bags?’

  There was social change in the English scene as well. In the mid-Fifties he wrote to a friend: ‘I say, what’s happened to English cricket? I understand there aren’t any amateurs any more. They pay people like Cowdrey? I wonder how that’s arranged, and how much they get. In my day the Fosters … I never understood how all of those brothers played first-class cricket all summer, every summer. Except Basil, of course. He was the actor. And the Gilligans and Crawleys and Ashtons. If I came back to England in the summer, I wonder if I’d find cricket interesting.’

  But if Wodehouse with his new love of America and his focus on the American market was a long way from his beloved Dulwich, then cricket in a sense had long ago come to him. As sound galvanised the motion picture industry in the Thirties, Hollywood became a marvellous market for English actors with smooth accents.

  By 1932 there were so many Englishmen – many of them public school products – in films, that they decided to introduce the natives to cricket, and have fun playing it themselves. At that year’s inaugural meeting of the Hollywood Cricket Club, Wodehouse – who had settled there on a lavish contract to MGM as a screenwriter – took the minutes, offered to help buy equipment, and inevitably renewed acquaintance with the club’s guiding spirit.

  This was the imperious Charles Aubrey Smith, his old opponent of Authors v. Actors days a quarter of a century earlier: twelve years later he was to be knighted for services to acting – not least his standard and effective portrayal of the British stiff upper lip.

  The Hollywood CC diamond anniversary book in 1992 reflects the tidal wave of change in the club from those distinctive and fairly elitist Thirties origins, when it was run by and for upper middle-class – if sometimes slightly raffish – English actors. Today it is dominated by hardworking Asian business and professional men, determined to continue the tradition established by Aubrey Smith with colleagues such as Errol Flynn, Nigel Bruce, Boris Karloff, Herbert Marshall, George Arliss, H.B. Warner, Frank Lawton and David Niven. Sir Laurence Olivier himself played just once, and Cary Grant was a post-war patron.

  The book reproduces a 1937 fixture list, with Pelham Wodehouse recorded as a vice-president along with Ronald Coleman, Leon Errol and George Arliss. Wodehouse is listed as paying 100 dollars to become a life member. But there is no record that he ever actually played: by 1932, at fifty-one, he accepted that his cricketing days were well past (only to be revived in the improbable wartime setting of Tost internment camp eight years later).

  While Charles Aubrey Smith, former England captain as he was, held the limelight for decades as the grand old man of the Hollywood CC, another club member had special links with the world of Wodehouse.

  He was the fearsome Boris Karloff – in reality the kindliest of men – who was born down the road from Dulwich at Camberwell in 1887, when Wodehouse was six. He learned his cricket at Uppingham, and threw himself delightedly into the new club – even having ‘Hollywood Cricket Club’ emblazoned on the tyre cover of his car.

  When Gubby Allen visited Hollywood on his way home from the 1936-37 series in Australia (which he lost so memorably after winning the first two Tests), Aubrey Smith called the England captain into the Hollywood team a couple of times. A match against Pasadena saw Hollywood reinforced not only by the current England skipper, but also by one of twenty-five years earlier. The omniscient C.B. Fry was a brilliant scholar, who represented England at cricket and soccer. Pasadena fielded while Allen scored 77, Fry got 12 – and David Niven made 15.

  Wodehouse spent much time with the visitor, as he recorded in a letter to Townend: ‘I have been seeing a lot of Gubby Allen, who came from Australia via Hollywood. A very good chap. I met him two years ago at Le Touquet. He was extraordinarily interesting about body-line, and the picture he drew of conditions during the Jardine-Larwood tour were almost exactly like an eyewitness’s description of the Spanish war.

  ‘Larwood apparently was going about saying that he did not intend to return to England without having killed at least a couple of Australian batsmen, and Jardine threatened to leave Gubby out of the team if he would not promise to start bowling at the batsmen’s heads immediately he was put on.

  ‘This tour appears to have been almost as bad, in a quieter way. Apparently the Australians never cease trying to slip something over on the English captain. Example – in the NSW match one of the umpires, named Barlow, cheated so badly that Gubby told them that he would never play with him again. A few days passed, and the time arrived for the umpires for the Test Match to be submitted to Gubby. He had some difficulty in getting them to name them, but eventually they said they would be two men named Jones and Bartlett.

  ‘“Bartlett?”, said Gubby. “I’ve never heard of him”. “Oh, very well-known Australian umpire”, they replied. “Excellent fellow, and very kind to his old mother”. “You don’t by any chance mean that fellow Barlow, do you?” said Gubby. Upon which, the Australian Board of Control slapped its forehead and said: “God bless my soul, isn’t it amazing how one gets names mixed up. Yes, Barlow, of course. That’s the chap’s name”. The idea being that if Gubby had accepted Bartlett and agreed to Bartlett, it would have been too late for him to have done anything when he arrived on the field for the Test Match, and found Barlow grinning at him.

  ‘Gubby struck me as a bit soured by it all. He was also sick with the rank and file of the English team, who failed enthusiastically on every occasion, so that the fast bowlers had to get the side out of the hole in practically every game. What England needs apparently, is the sort of bowler I used to be in my prime – the sort of man who never gets a wicket, but bowls six yorkers per over, and can’t be scored off.’

  However, that enticing tale about disguised-but-rejected umpire Andy Barlow, who stood in eleven Tests between 1931 and 1951, and was widely regarded in Australia as a first rate official, is not confirmed. He did not officiate in either of two MCC-NSW matches of 1936-37 – but he did so in the two Victorian games against the visitors, in November and February. Was he – even under the pseudonym of Bartlett – actually nominated for a Test? There is no record of it – and to complicate the story just that touch further, there was no umpire Jones in Australian cricket at that stage, either.

  There was an umpire J. Bartlett in Australia – a Queenslander, who in 1932-33 handled a single Sheffield match, and did not cross MCC paths.

  All five Tests of 1936-37 were umpired by E.G. Barwick and J.D. Scott, so that the suspicion remains that Wodehouse wrote a pleasingly entertaining, recollected-in-tranquillity-but-not-actually-spot-on report of what the England skipper told him.

  Wodehouse had recorded an early body-line tour impression in a letter to Townend of 4 January, 1933, when he commented: ‘Second Test Match. How about it? What a bunch of rabbits! Isn’t it odd how cricketers during the county season seem such marvels, yet no good in Australia.’ In fact, England swept to a crushing 4-1 series victory in that turbulent season.

  One disappointment for the historian is that Wodehouse was not present from 25-28 August, 1932, when an Australian team led by the veteran spin bowler Arthur Mailey played four one-day matches against Hollywood. The locals batted 20 men in the first game, and 18 in the others: the tourists won each convincingly, with the young (and honeymooning) Don Bradman making 83 not out in the first match.

  In 1965, the Wodehouse interest in cricket was stimulated by a parcel of books from John Arlott, and he promptly responded to say they were ‘a welcome addition to my cricket library. I gulped them all down at one go, and particularly enjoyed the Maurice Tate one.’

  In a sign of the sharp eye he still kept on the game, the letter of thanks added: ‘The pro
spects in Australia don’t look very bright, though I remember everybody said that P.F. Warner’s side hadn’t a chance. You never know what will happen out there’. Warner’s team, which upset the critical applecart, had won 3-2 in Australia in 1903-04, and the memory was clearly still significant for his namesake.

  7 The Cricket Record

  Given that cricket played so substantial a part in Wodehouse’s life, it has received surprisingly modest attention beyond a series of thoughtful references by Benny Green in P.G. Wodehouse – A Literary Biography. The only specific study appears to be that by Jim Coldham in The Cricketer magazine of 27 June, 1953.

  Assessing Wodehouse as cricketer and cricket writer, Coldham stressed that unlike many writers of fiction, he wrote with a considerable knowledge of the game. He summarised the Dulwich career, with the odd aberration of referring to his ‘slow bowling’. Wodehouse is on record as bowling slow leg-breaks – but this was at age 59 on 21 June, 1941, in the unlikely setting of Tost internment camp, in Upper Silesia. He joined enthusiastically in the impromptu and ill-equipped matches the internees played, to the puzzlement of their guards and non-English prisoners.

  Wodehouse later noted this as his first game for twenty-seven years, which means he had not played since 1914, the year he turned thirty-three. ‘I found sailors playing cricket in the yard – real bat and stumps (ball made by the sailors, interned from the captured S.S. Orama). I hadn’t played for twenty-seven years, and found it hard to get down to balls. I bowled and got one wicket – great fun’.

  He explained how the ball tended to get through the barbed wire surrounding the yard, whereupon ‘a sailor is shoved through after it’. Another entry in his camp diary explained how they played on a dirt pitch with a pump just where the bowler ran in. ‘If the ball goes through the barbed wire, we have to tie two bats together with a handkerchief and grope for it. If it goes out the other end, the sentry prods it back with a bayonet’.

  One final question should be asked about Wodehouse the sportsman: might he have made the grade as a first class cricketer at Oxford? The truth is probably that he was never more than a moderate player: an immediate pointer is that his older brother, Armine, always regarded as the better of the two, was apparently never in the running for a Blue.

  E.A. Wodehouse did no more than secure a regular place in his college XI, after having an early opportunity in the Oxford Freshmen’s Match of 1900. He failed to take a wicket, made only four not out, and seven, and dropped out of contention. Among his mostly anonymous teammates was one who four years later not only won the deciding Sydney Ashes Test for England with a spell of five wickets for 12 runs, but did so with the aid of his revolutionary bowling style that was to make him a major figure in cricket history. This was B.J.T. Bosanquet, first practitioner of the googly, or wrong ’un – also called the bosey, in honour of its inventor.

  Wodehouse would have had to earn his Blue as a fast bowler: in his favour, he would have been up at Oxford presumably in 1901, when the university bowling was ‘unreasonably bad’, according to Geoffrey Bolton in his history of the Oxford University CC. Bolton records that ‘things went badly for Oxford cricket in the next six years’ (1902-07), so an eager and successful Wodehouse might well have forced his way into an unsuccessful team.

  But ambition might have been lacking: his determination to be a writer was so ingrained when he left Dulwich, that it seems unlikely that he would have devoted himself to cricket sufficiently to impress his potential skipper.

  The point is made today by Wodehouse’s step-grandson, Sir Edward Cazalet (son of Wodehouse’s step-daughter Leonora), who after World War Two periodically visited Wodehouse in America, when the pair would cheerfully talk cricket, past and present.

  ‘He understood the game to a T – and he was extremely interested in one-day cricket,’ Sir Edward recalled. ‘He was an academic in a way – and would have got a First at Oxford. But I doubt that his cricket would have been good enough for a Blue or a first class career – I don’t think he would have got anywhere. He was made an honorary member of Warwickshire in recognition of the Percy Jeeves link, and he would wear the county tie sometimes, to puzzle Americans. I don’t think he was much of a batsman, though he did make some runs at Lord’s for the Authors. I asked him once about his innings – and he said: “I would have made a century if the boundaries had been closer.”’

  Sir Edward feels that once freed of school discipline and its structured game, Wodehouse would have devoted all spare time outside essential study to developing his creative writing. And if it had been a matter of alternatives – either that Oxford acquire a moderate pace bowler for a fleeting couple of seasons, or that the world be blessed by a unique writing talent – then even for those of us captivated by cricket, the choice is clear and unarguable. P.G. Wodehouse will write for our eternal delectation, rather than be just another useful cricketing amateur of the Golden Age.

  The MCC Match

  ON THE MONDAY morning Mike passed the notice-board just as Burgess turned away from pinning up the list of the team to play the MCC. He read it, and his heart missed a beat. For, bottom but one, just above the W.B. Burgess, was a name that leaped from the paper at him. His own name.

  If the day happens to be fine, there is a curious, dream-like atmosphere about the opening stages of a first eleven match. Everything seems hushed and expectant. The rest of the school have gone in after the interval at eleven o’clock, and you are alone on the grounds with a cricket-bag. The only signs of life are a few pedestrians on the road beyond the railings and one or two blazer and flannel-clad forms in the pavilion. The sense of isolation is trying to the nerves, and a school team usually bats 25 per cent better after lunch, when the strangeness has worn off.

  Mike walked across from Wain’s, where he had changed, feeling quite hollow. He could almost have cried with pure fright. Bob had shouted after him from a window as he passed Donaldson’s, to wait, so that they could walk over together; but conversation was the last thing Mike desired at that moment.

  He had almost reached the pavilion when one of the MCC team came down the steps, saw him, and stopped dead.

  ‘By Jove, Saunders!’ cried Mike.

  ‘Why, Master Mike!’

  The professional beamed, and quite suddenly, the lost, hopeless feeling left Mike. He felt as cheerful as if he and Saunders had met in the meadow at home, and were just going to begin a little quiet net-practice.

  ‘Why, Master Mike, you don’t mean to say you’re playing for the school already?’

  Mike nodded happily.

  ‘Isn’t it ripping,’ he said.

  Saunders slapped his leg in a sort of ecstasy.

  ‘Didn’t I always say it, sir,’ he chuckled. ‘Wasn’t I right? I used to say to myself it ’ud be a pretty good school team that ’ud leave you out.’

  ‘Of course, I’m only playing as a sub., you know. Three chaps are in extra, and I got one of the places.’

  ‘Well, you’ll make a hundred today, Master Mike, and then they’ll have to put you in.’

  ‘Wish I could!’

  ‘Master Joe’s come down with the Club,’ said Saunders.

  ‘Joe! Has he really? How ripping! Hullo, here he is. Hullo, Joe?’

  The greatest of all the Jacksons was descending the pavilion steps with the gravity befitting an All England batsman. He stopped short, as Saunders had done.

  ‘Mike! You aren’t playing!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’m hanged! Young marvel, isn’t he, Saunders?’

  ‘He is, sir,’ said Saunders. ‘Got all the strokes. I always said it, Master Joe. Only wants the strength.’

  Joe took Mike by the shoulder, and walked him off in the direction of a man in a Zingari blazer who was bowling slows to another of the MCC team. Mike recognised him with awe as one of the three best amateur wicket-keepers in the country.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ said Joe, exhibiting Mike, who grinned bashfully. ‘Aged ten last
birthday, and playing for the school. You are only ten, aren’t you, Mike?’

  ‘Brother of yours?’ asked the wicket-keeper.

  ‘Probably too proud to own the relationship, but he is.’

  ‘This is our star. You wait till he gets at us today. Saunders is our only bowler, and Mike’s been brought up on Saunders. You’d better win the toss if you want a chance of getting a knock and lifting your average out of the minuses.’

  ‘I have won the toss,’ said the other with dignity. ‘Do you think I don’t know the elementary duties of a captain?’

  The school went out to field with mixed feelings. The wicket was hard and true, which would have made it pleasant to be going in first. On the other hand, they would feel decidedly better and fitter for centuries after the game had been in progress an hour or so. Burgess was glad as a private individual, sorry as a captain. For himself, the sooner he got hold of the ball and began to bowl the better he liked it. As a captain, he realised that a side with Joe Jackson on it, not to mention the other first-class men, was not a side to which he would have preferred to give away an advantage. Mike was feeling that by no possibility could he hold the simplest catch, and hoping that nothing would come his way. Bob, conscious of being an uncertain field, was feeling just the same.

  The MCC opened with Joe and a man in an Oxford Authentic cap. The beginning of the game was quiet. Burgess’s yorker was nearly too much for the latter in the first over, but he contrived to chop it away, and the pair gradually settled down. At twenty, Joe began to open his shoulders. Twenty became forty with disturbing swiftness, and Burgess tried a change of bowling.

  It seemed for one instant as if the move had been a success, for Joe, still taking risks, tried to late-cut a rising ball, and snicked it straight into Bob’s hands at second slip. It was the easiest of slip-catches, but Bob fumbled it, dropped it, almost held it a second time, and finally let it fall miserably to the ground. It was a moment too painful for words. He rolled the ball back to the bowler in silence.