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…one of the best tourist resorts…
In Goldeneye, Matthew Parker cites the verdict of an ‘American newspaper’ that in 1952 Montego Bay was ‘the best resort in the British Empire’ (p.126).
Trueman (1961, p.171) described Montego Bay as ‘the most fantastic place I’ve stayed in all my born days’. Journalists having to file expense claims back home seem to have enjoyed the facilities with rather more restraint than the players: Bannister noted with some alarm that gin-and-tonics cost six shillings-and-sixpence (Cauldron, p.154) – by the next tour in 1959/60 Martinis cost a shilling more (Ross, Through the Caribbean, p.133).
‘it was very unusual in those days for wives to go on tour’
Richard Hutton, e-mail to the author, 14 December 2018.
Evans found the Montego Bay interlude ‘wonderfully refreshing’
Gloves are Off, p.142.
‘coincided with good form shown by their husbands’
Laker, Spinning Round the World, p.153.
Compare Trevor Bailey’s Cricket Book, p.52: ‘Len Hutton never played better than when joined by his wife in the West Indies.’
On the other hand, Graveney – who missed the birth of his daughter while he was in the West Indies – was against wives on tour: ‘any captain knows the better their party grows inwards, rather than outwards, the better their chance of success’ (p.102).
‘a sumptuous lunch at the famous Jamaica Inn’
Bannister, Cauldron, p.154.
The tourists considered Sayen a lucky mascot … and a generous patron
Ross noted the next winter in Australia that Sayen’s ‘enthusiasm seemed only equalled by his generosity in the cause of English cricket’ (Australia 55, p.148).
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‘the poverty, abominable living conditions and chronic joblessness…’
Gray, Demeaned but Empowered, p.60.
while making sure to disassociate themselves from the ‘Communist’ agitation…
When Norman Manley met Leigh Fermor in 1950, he is said to have admitted the PNP was ‘as far left…as it is possible to be, short of revolution and public violence; but (he dropped his low voice still lower to lend emphasis to what he was about to say) entirely unconnected with the Communist Party’ (Traveller’s Tree, p,347). Because of the frostiness of the Cold War, developments in Jamaica, and – especially – the situation in BG, Manley would have been dropping his voice even lower by 1954.
‘a more biased set of typewriter punchers’
All the quotations in this paragraph are from Jones’s Public Opinion column, under the headline ‘POOR SHOW’, 27 March 1954, p.7.
Jones may have reached for the most provocative metaphors, but by now there had been a chorus of complaints about the English journalists. As MCC were leaving Trinidad, Charles Archibald wrote a leader article in the Port of Spain Gazette, portraying the visiting press corps, with the notable exception of Swanton, as the true villains of the piece:
‘What sticks in my gullet is that members of the profession to which I belong should be so oblivious to the spirit of the game which they are reporting as to rake up all the mud they can find and throw it about with such carelessness. If anything lowers the prestige of the United Kingdom in the Caribbean as a result of the MCC tour, it will be their conduct’ (5 April 1954, p.4).
‘by then the goings-on had been the subject of concern and inquiry…’
Compton, End of an Innings, p.128.
‘a diplomatic and sporting disaster of the first magnitude’
In conversation with Andrew Murtagh (for his biography Touched by Greatness), Graveney suggested that Swanton may have been the source of reports to Lord’s on player behaviour:
‘Do you know who we reckoned was the mole, the one who spilt the beans?’ I shook my head. ‘Swanton!’ That surprised me not at all. Swanton would have had the ears of Gubby Allen and all the other committee members of MCC back at Lord’s.
Hutton was ‘surprised’ to receive telegrams from the MCC secretariat…
Although Bannister ghosted that book where that phrase appears, there is a different emphasis in his Cricket Cauldron. Similarly in Howat’s biography, which appears to draw on conversations with Hutton, we are told the captain had actively ‘given instructions’ to the players ‘that they were to exercise total restraint and give no cause for complaint whatever’ (p.137).
WRITTEN YOU TODAY SOUTH CAMP ROAD HOTEL
Telegram from Aird to Hutton, 24 March (MCC Archive, SEC/3/60).
In fairness, it should be noted that Aird sent two telegrams, before and during the game, offering support and best wishes in a more conventional way.
PAGE 283
‘strapped up from neck to navel’ … ‘knew it was hopeless’
Statham, Cricket Merry-Go-Round, p.97.
Dalton had prescribed ‘swill baths’, massage and other treatments which ‘did a little good’ – but not enough.
PAGE 284
Headley had gone back to Dudley
He left Jamaica in mid-March, sailing back to Britain via America. He was seen off by a party of well-wishers including Leslie Hylton, who will appear briefly in Chapter 19 in less happy circumstances (Port of Spain Gazette, 21 March 1954, p.14).
…the pitch was good for a first innings score of 700
The groundsman’s remark was reported at the time by Rostron (Express, p.8) and recollected by Hutton in Fifty Years, p.113: ‘Looking at the strip, rolled and rolled again until it shone under the Caribbean sun, I was inclined to agree’. White thought the track looked ‘shiny’ and ‘run-laden’ (Chronicle, p.8).
‘Our only hope … then bowl them out with spinners…’ … ‘despairing look’
Bailey, Wickets, Catches and the Odd Run, p.192.
‘spirits in the England dressing-room plummeted’
Graveney, Cricket Through the Covers, p.122.
‘My feelings … can be imagined’
Hutton, Fifty Years, p.113.
The England captain thought ‘everything was wrong’…
Hutton, Fifty Years, p.113.
The reason was obvious as Fred Trueman was not only yards faster…
Bailey, Wickets, Catches and the Odd Run, p.193.
Bannister is surely giving only a supplementary reason at best when he claims Hutton and Bailey had discussed the significance of the new ball: ‘So important, in fact, was its use that even the matter of six balls was considered important and Bailey, the more accurate of the two fast bowlers, opened in preference to Trueman’ (Cauldron, p.159).
‘came back like a rocket’ off the pitch
Evans, Gloves are Off, p.142.
– ten thought Crawford White
News Chronicle, p.8: ‘we saw the great Everton Weekes completely beaten by another ball from Bailey which nipped back three or four inches from the off to somersault his off stump 10 yards out of the ground’. Bray agreed the stump ‘went cartwheeling many a yard’ (Port of Spain Gazette, p.1).
PAGE 285
Bailey said he would be happy with three for 100 as his first-innings figures
Wickets, Catches and the Odd Run, p.192: ‘If anybody had asked me before we went out to field what I would have settled for as a bowler, I would have said three for 100 in 35 overs. Even then, I reckoned I would need to bowl well for those figures.’ A comment repeated in his interview with Dellor in Lost Voices.
‘the happily-noisy Jamaican crowd were struck dumb’
Hall, Mirror, p.15.
‘the England players gathered slowly in small discussion groups…’
Bannister, Cauldron, p.160.
McWatt ‘lived from hand to mouth’
Swanton, Adventure, p.174.
Walcott looked ‘supremely safe’
Rostron, Express, p.8.
PAGE 286
‘Without being arrogant, I could not understand why …’
Sobers, Twenty Years at the Top, p.43.
Bannister corroborates: ‘Sobers is clearly gifted with a cricketer’s temperament and he accepted the challenge and presented a full blade to every ball’ (Cauldron, p.162).
‘He will tell you to this day … that he was savouring the thought’
Statham, Flying Bails, p.95.
This would happen to him only twice more in 93 Tests…
Sobers was left high and dry on 35* in the first innings of the final Test against Australia the next winter, and then on 95* in the final Test against England in 1967/68. All his other not outs in Test cricket resulted from declarations or occurred when the match had ended in a West Indies win or a draw. Sobers’ attitude to batting with the tail – and not for his average – can be compared to Steve Waugh’s.
Bailey’s figures of seven for 34 were the best yet recorded…
Valentine had taken eight for 104 at Old Trafford in 1950. Bailey’s innings figures have since been superseded in England/West Indies Tests by six fast bowlers: Harmison and Marshall (who took seven wickets more economically), Holding (eight for 92 at The Oval, 1976), Botham (eight for 103 at Lord’s, 1983), Fraser (eight for 75 at Bridgetown 1994; eight for 53 at Port of Spain, 1998) and Ambrose, who still holds the record for the best figures in England/West Indies Tests by any bowler (eight for 45 at Bridgetown, 1990).
The Jamaican crowd, ‘strangely quiet’ all afternoon…
Swanton, Adventure, p.174.
PAGE 287
‘one of the greatest displays …’ … ‘in all kinds of worries’
Figueroa, West Indies in England, pp.138-39.
‘wandering about my hotel, a case of mental, rather than physical exhaustion’
Bailey, Wickets, Catches and the Odd Run, p.193.
‘I simply experienced one of those dream days when everything went right’
Bailey, in a Cricinfo interview with Ijaz Chaudhry (10 January 2011). He made similar remarks in his interview with Dellor for Lost Voices.
‘as dry as old parchment’
Trueman, As It Was, p.170.
‘Each ball left a slight dent in the pitch…’
Wardle, Happy Go Johnny, p.138.
‘perhaps there was something unusual’
Evans, Gloves are Off, p.142.
‘could scarcely credit what had happened to them’ … ‘That’s cricket…’
Bannister, Cauldron, p.163.
Henry Sayen says he had a chat to Weekes, who was equally philosophical: ‘You can’t be successful every time’ (Yankee Looks at Cricket).
‘had more life in it than usual’
Walcott, Island Cricketers, p.94.
‘Whether or not the pitch was affected by a shower of rain,’ mused Hayter, ‘is a fact difficult to establish’. But his report makes several references to a ‘surprisingly lively’ pitch (p.2).
‘aided and abetted’ … ‘some rather irresolute batting’
Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.149.
‘He seems to have summed them up just as he summed up the Australians…’
Swanton, Adventure, p.171.
See Trevor Bailey’s Cricket Book, p.15-16 for the ‘never-forgotten’ lessons taught him by the Australians. But if Bailey never forgot, I’m afraid I did forget something – Arunabha Sengupta has rightly pointed out, in his review of Who Only Cricket Know, that late in the season Bailey had yet another encounter with Bradman’s tourists at Hastings, playing for the South. His figures of 21-0-125-2 were again chastening, taking his true aggregate against the Invincibles to 84-7-406-6.
PAGE 288
‘It was doing a bit and he made the very most of it’
Sir Everton Weekes, telephone interview with the author, 31 January 2018.
Peter May wrote that Bailey had engineered the collapse with ‘a superb, supremely accurate spell of bowling that used everything in the way of movement offered by atmosphere and pitch’ (A Game Enjoyed, p.62).
‘the fastest I have seen in the West Indies’
Swanton, Adventure, p.177.
[Swanton writes ‘in West Indies’ but as that cuts against the convention in the book where ‘West Indies’ means the cricket team and ‘the West Indies’ means the region I have amended.]
‘as hostile as anything I have seen since Lindwall and Miller…’
White, News Chronicle, p.8.
‘I ducked, dived and weaved, while Len smiled approvingly…’
Bailey, in Len Hutton Remembered. He refers to this passage of play again in his introduction to Lemmon’s pictorial biography of Hutton, where he notes Hutton ‘knew when not to run’ (p.12).
‘particularly enjoyed’ seeing his skipper turn down singles to third man
Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.150.
the ‘inference’ … ‘made good tactical sense’
Hutton, Fifty Years, pp.112-13.
PAGE 289
Bailey would have been knocked out cold
Bannister, Cauldron, p.164: ‘fortunately a glove softened the blow otherwise he might have known the fate of many a heavyweight…’; Bray, Port of Spain Gazette, p.1: ‘Bailey took several balls from King on his hands and arms and finally took one on the chin which, but for hitting his glove first, would have knocked him out cold.’
Bailey’s ‘service to England cannot be overestimated’
Hutton, Fifty Years, pp.114.
‘remained unshaken to the point of seeming indifference’
Bannister, Cauldron, p.165.
‘It was very clever what he did…’
Sir Everton Weekes, telephone interview with the author, 31 January 2018.
‘This was the first time I had played against Garry…’
Bailey, Sir Gary, p.26. [I have silently conformed Gary to Garry in the quotation.]
PAGE 290
‘Silly little cut’
England’s Finest, at about 36:25.
‘which went nicely through the covers’ … ‘becoming rather pleased with the speed…’
May, A Game Enjoyed, p.63.
Hayter confirms that May ‘drove his first ball confidently for 4’ (Times, p.2)
‘or so I thought – but Bruce Pairaudeau, fielding for Walcott…’
May, A Game Enjoyed, p.63.
‘hatefully good’ … ‘covering his shirt and trousers…’
Swanton, Adventure, p.178.
Perhaps Swanton may be echoing, whether consciously or not, Cardus’s description of a ‘sinful catch’ by Clem Hill at Sheffield in 1902.
Pairaudeau can no longer remember the precise details…
Telephone interview with author, 15 February 2015.
Hutton’s ‘disinclination to hasten drew from a section of the crowd…’
Bannister, Cauldron, p.166.
Compton looked in prime form…
Bannister ‘had to go back to his palmiest days to recall him starting an innings as if he was at the end of it’ (Cauldron, p.166). Rostron thought he was batting with ‘rare confidence’ (Express, p.8).
another bouncer described as ‘colossal’ by Charles Bray
Port of Spain Gazette, p.1. Bannister called it ‘terrific’ (Cauldron, p.166).
PAGE 291
Rostron later reported that Compton was more hurt by a ‘controversial’ decision…
Express, 1 April 1954, p.8.
his carbon-copy dismissal against Miller at Trent Bridge in 1948
Recalled by Swanton (Adventure, p.179), Bannister (Cauldron, p.167), Alkins (Trinidad Guardian, p.1).
the man who had batted against type at Adelaide in 1946/47
Legend has it that Evans was sent a telegram by Churchill after this innings: ‘Never did one man bat so long for so little’ (Sandford 1990, p.50).
‘King Will Play’ was the headline in several Caribbean newspapers…
It was a headline box in Alkins’ report of the second day’s play for the Trinidad Guardian (1 April 1954, p.1): ‘He suffered only a strain of muscle and the doctors believe they will put him back into the Test as good as new in the morning.’
‘disciplined himself well to defence’
Hayter, Times, p.4. Rostron agreed it was ‘disciplined stone walling’ (Express, p.8).
PAGE 292
‘this slight, pale…’ … ‘ball after ball…’ … ‘But he would have had a reason…’
Graveney, Cricket Through the Covers, p.122.
‘comparative freedom from pain’
Hutton, Just My Story, p.113.
‘the right hand is a sinner’
Hammond in turn attributed this saying to another England captain (Cricketers’ School, p.94):
‘One of the most pithy sayings about batsmanship, which should always be remembered by beginners and stylists alike, is attributed to that immoveable batsman, Douglas Jardine, and it is that, in batting, the right hand is the sinner and the left hand is the true guide.’
‘The top hand is life and the bottom hand is death’
David Steele, in a Test Match Special interview with Jonathan Agnew.
Mike Brearley observes that the word ‘ascetic’ …
On Cricket, p.20, where he says he is picking up the word from Ross – perhaps referring to Australia 55, p.39.
What Swanton called ‘a mere war of attrition’ then resumed
Adventure, p.182.
‘a straight, almost motionless bat’ … ‘not greatly appreciated by the Jamaican crowd’
Ditton, Gleaner, p.10.
PAGE 293
at the crucial moment, like Compton in BG, he repressed all his instincts
Indeed, extraordinarily, Evans and Compton ended up with slower scoring rates for the series than their captain.
…what Swanton described as a more ‘princely’ six
Swanton, Adventure, p.183.
‘None who saw it will ever forget it. What grace! What beauty! What power!’
Hall, Mirror, p.15. Hayter reckoned Hutton’s straight-drive was ‘the longest 6 of the tour’ (Times, p.4).
his team … seemed to be losing heart
It is interesting to see the home correspondents succumb to the very clichés they hated hearing from the English: ‘The West Indians either play very good or very bad, and yesterday they were very bad’ (Roberts in Gleaner, p.12). He thought ‘even’ Stollmeyer had become ‘befuddled’ as the day wore on, not introducing Sobers or Walcott quickly enough, then putting himself on and going too much on the defensive.
Albert Alkins in the Trinidad Guardian agreed that ‘West Indies seemed to lose heart as the game got out of their grasp, … their fielding not lending the support it should’.
with what Swanton called ‘one of the best specimens of his cover drive’
Adventure, p.183.
PAGE 294
‘We take his pads off, we smoke a cigarette for him…’
Bailey, interviewed in Len Hutton Remembered, p.84.
Compare Graveney’s interview in the same book: ‘He used to come into the dressing-room and just sit down in a daze. We’d take his pads off, give him a cup of tea and with five minutes to go we’d say, “Pads on, get ready”’ (p.108).
he is reported to have ignored – or even brushed aside – a figure…
It is hard to find eye-witness accounts of the initial incident not coloured by the ensuing controversy. There is consensus that Hutton received a ‘great ovation’ (Bannister, Trinidad Guardian, p.10) from the members as he walked into tea. In the Port of Spain Gazette (p.1), Bray reported that Bustamante ‘came and met him at the gate and warmly shook his hand’ – no trace of unpleasantness in this account. Bailey later wrote that Hutton ‘gently pushed aside a swaying figure whom he did not really notice’ (1986, p.94); Henry Sayen, probably in the pavilion at the time, thought Hutton was ‘curt to an official’ (Yankee Looks at Cricket, p.9).
Bailey recalled opening the door to a ‘political lackey’
Wickets, Catches and the Odd Run, p.184.
Palmer remembered this uninvited guest being a ‘large man’…
Miller, Charles Palmer, p.97.
Hutton recollected a good deal of shouting about a ‘crowning insult’
Fifty Years, p.111.
‘wild accusations’
Fifty Years, p.111.
‘bulged very significantly’ under the intruder’s armpit
I wonder how seriously we should take Evans’ story given that he claims he could see the outlines of the gun under the bodyguard’s jacket – when the temperature was over 90 degrees that day. Then again, it would not be a surprise if Kingston CC had a ‘jackets on’ policy inside its pavilion. But I think the general point about a whiff of gangsterism holds as Bustamante had a reputation for pulling guns, or threatening to pull guns, himself.
‘a mental whirl after the rumpus’
Hutton, Fifty Years, p.112.
‘the rest of the English batting was inevitably anti-climax…’
Swanton, Adventure, p.184 He thought Wardle should have been given more of the strike and given himself more licence: ‘In 50 dreary minutes the last four wickets subscribed 24.’ Rostron also found it ‘hard to understand the tactics of the tailenders’ (Express, p.8).
PAGE 295
a ‘magnificent opportunity to show why …’
Roberts, Gleaner, p.12.
‘hardly the conduct of an English gentleman’
Hutton remembered this comment in Fifty Years, p.63.
a short column on the ‘unpleasant incident’
The Gleaner, p.1
Hutton was disappointed to see this account ‘prominently front-paged’
Fifty Years, p.112.
PAGE 296
Holt ‘stood uncertainly …despite as clean a catch as could be seen’
Bannister, Trinidad Guardian, p.10.
Albert Alkins … pointed out that Holt had taken his eye off the ball…
Trinidad Guardian, p.1. Here is an example of a feedback loop within the same edition of a single newspaper, although Alkins was not overtly critiquing Bannister’s syndicated copy.
‘West Indian players are not constitutionally happy when the accent is on defence’
Swanton, Adventure, p.188.
‘He even used to wee on it’
Moss, interview with the author, 31 March 2015.
his ability to cork an end…
Graveney (1965, p.86): ‘On a good wicket Laker always put one end to sleep’.
PAGE 297
instructing the close fielders to ‘wildly applaud’…
Sandford, Godfrey Evans, p.120.
Crawford White thought it was ‘a word from Hutton’ that had Trueman ‘positively tear into his job’ with the new ball (Chronicle, p.8).
Rostron noted that he behaved ‘correctly’ throughout the Test …
Daily Express, p.8.
‘It was the Trueman we have been waiting for…’
Hall, Daily Mirror, p.15. Rostron agreed he ‘bowled today with a controlled ferocity he has not shown since the opening match of the tour’ (Express, p.8).
‘You won’t get no _______ more!’
Walcott, Island Cricketers, p.96.
Trueman was politely telling Walcott he would not get any more fours – ‘he was wrong’ – rather than saying there would be nothing else pitched in his half. But, by all accounts, he peppered Walcott with bouncers, in a way which some reporters felt was persistent and systematic under the terms of Law 46. Walcott received similar treatment the next winter from the Australians, who ‘always felt the hook was the weak stroke in his armour and that at some point during the course of his innings, it would betray him (Landsberg, Kangaroo Conquers, p.197). On the evidence of the scorebook, the rewards seemed well worth any risk.
PAGE 298
‘often at his wit’s end solving Wardle’s oriental problems’
Hayter, Times, 5 April 1954, p.4.
a catch hailed by the English journalists as ‘magnificent’ and ‘phenomenal’
The first adjective is used by Hayter (Sunday Times, p.1); Compare Bannister: ‘I have seen some dazzling catches but this was one of the finest’ (Cauldron, p.173).
It won Sayen’s £5 prize for England’s most spectacular piece of cricket
Yankee Looks at Cricket, p.8.
Wardle, Happy Go Johnny, p.138: he explains he had just swapped places with Watson, because he was on a better line for a left-handed throwing arm.
Observers on both sides realised, without the benefit of hindsight…
Alkins: ‘Sobers stayed to show he is a great in the making. He played quietly, then cut and hooked as if he had grown many more years at the wicket’ (Trinidad Guardian, p.2).
Bannister: ‘Sobers, who seems likely to give England many a headache in the future…’ (Cauldron, p.174).
Swanton: ‘Sobers made an excellent impression … It will be surprising if we do not come to know his name well in the years ahead’ (Adventure, p.178).
PAGE 299
‘all virtue seemed to depart from the England team’
Swanton, Adventure, p.193.
PAGE 300
‘an unfortunate impression’ … ‘not been offended…’ … ‘no affront was intended’
Gleaner, p.8.
‘This tour may not have done any harm. But it hasn’t done any good.’
Bustamante, as quoted in a ‘Peter Ditton Special’, front-paged in the Trinidad Guardian, 6 April 1954.
Hutton and Palmer were in damage-limitation mode….
In remarks made at Port Antonio just before MCC boarded their boat home, Hutton was quoted as follows: ‘The decision on MCC tours is naturally made at Lord’s, but so far as I am concerned as captain of the touring team I know nothing which should prevent MCC teams coming to the West Indies in the future.’ He also paid tribute to the ‘great hospitality of cricket officials in the various colonies’ and praised Burke and Ewart, suggesting they should be put on a umpires’ panel to stand in Tests across the Caribbean (Trinidad Guardian, 8 April 1954, p.2).
Palmer, at the same press briefing, was reported by The Times as saying the ‘incidents’ of the tour had been ‘magnified out of all proportion’ (7 April 1954, p.7).
Robin Marlar … was to claim that Hutton bore a lifelong grudge …
Marlar made this assertion in a Sunday Times tribute just after Hutton’s death: ‘He never forgave the West Indians after the controversy into which the apparently well-meaning but wicked … Bustamante dragged him, accusing him of rudeness, of all unlikely charges. Leonard was courteous and unassuming’ (9 September 1990, p.6[S]).
However, the article begins by noting that Hutton made the effort to attend a fortieth anniversary function celebrating West Indies victory at Lord’s, which Michael Manley also attended.
PAGE 301
Hutton later compared Bustamante’s entourage to ‘the Gestapo’
Fifty Years, p.93.
Hutton certainly rated his innings as one of his very best
From the short Foreword Hutton provided to a history of England-West Indies Tests by the Rev. S. Canynge Caple (1957, p.8): ‘I … consider my double century at Sabina Park, Jamaica, in the final Test, ranks as one of the greatest innings I have ever played in Test cricket.’
Arlott, perhaps thinking of Hutton’s double-century against the West Indies at home in 1950, noted the quality that would be in evidence again when he achieved the feat away from home: ‘the unobtrusive conserving of energy through the first hundred against the labours of the next’ (Echoing Green, p.149).
‘truly remarkable’
Compton, in Len Hutton Remembered, p.62.
‘astonishing’
Lock, For Surrey and England, p.62.
‘a thing apart’
Swanton, Adventure, p.181.
‘greatest innings’ … ‘played in extreme heat and taxing circumstances’
Statham, Flying Bails, p.50; Cricket Merry Go Round, p.122.
‘tremendous test of character and technique’ … ‘He knew damn well…’
Palmer, in Len Hutton Remembered, p.52.
‘Never have I seen a man so determined to win a match …’
Graveney, Cricket Through the Covers, p.126.
Bailey (Cricket Book, p.29) thought the innings in Jamiaca was Hutton’s ‘greatest’. Wardle agreed it was ‘surely the greatest’ of all his great innings (Happy Go Johnny, p.138).
HUTTON’S WAGON WHEEL
Taken from the diagram in Bannister’s Cricket Cauldron, p.169.
PAGE 302
‘the old bogey of a professional captaining an England touring eleven…’
Trinidad Guardian, 4 April 1954, p.6.
‘the vice-captain of the West Indies team is also professional…’
Trinidad Guardian, 8 April 1954, p.4.
Hutton’s own local intelligence was that the whole episode was a ‘put-up’ job
Fifty Years, p.111.
‘the most flamboyant and exhibitionist’ course of action…
Ashton and Killingray, British Documents, p.16.
Leigh Fermor’s portrait of Bustamante as a ‘tall and magnificent histrion’ is worth reading: ‘He has the form and colouring of an Iroqois chief, and, in repose, the same expression of supercilious aloofness, anomalously backed by a Liszt-like shock of white hair; anomalously poised, too, on a high white collar and white butterfly bow’ (Traveller’s Tree, p.348).
Lance Neita … suggests Bustamante’s approach to Hutton …
E-mail to the author, 28 February 2021.
‘an occasion of loyal Imperial solidarity unmarred…’
Colville, The New Elizabethans, p.44.
Nehru … had to spend most of the ceremony in close proximity to Malan…
The two men were in proximate carriages on the procession to the Abbey and George Lamming noted that they had to sit close together for the ceremony. All this is confirmed by the order of ceremony in The Times.
Even Randolph Churchill was forced to admit that a controversy about whether Commonwealth leaders should carry the Queen’s regalia (particularly sensitive as India was now a republic) ‘serve to underline and sharpen existing differences which no one has any interest to stress at this time’.
Jomo Kenyatta … Kenya African Union …
Kenyatta was sentenced on 8 April 1954 to a maximum sentence of seven years’ hard labour for ‘managing Mau Mau’, with three years running concurrently for membership of Mau Mau (Times, 9 April, p.6). The proscription on the KAU, effective 8 June, was announced in Parliament on 11 June 1954. In the Lords, Viscount Stansgate made the point that this would inevitably prejudice Kenyatta’s appeal against his sentence (Hansard, vol. 182 cc889-97).
PAGE 303
‘long retain’ … ‘West Indies trailing wearily into their tea’
Swanton, Adventure, p.181.
‘gave the Europeans in the islands a tremendous fillip’
Evans, Action in Cricket, p.94.
reported as giving England ‘vociferous support’ throughout the match
Not least by Swanton, both in Adventure (p.183) and in a later article for The Cricketer (April 1976).
Perhaps it was as well that Warner was too old to accompany MCC – on Allen’s tour he had proudly asked the Royal Marines to perform a Tattoo at Sabina Park (Long Innings, p.179).
Jagan was arrested on the last day of the series…
3 April 1954, in the village of Mahaicony, where he claimed he was performing work as a dentist. The British considered this a breach of restrictions on his movements outside Georgetown. His wife, Janet, and eight other PPP members, were arrested the next day for an unlawful procession. Jagan was initially bailed, but breached restrictions again on 5 March and was quickly sentenced, in a trial without jury, to six months imprisonment with hard labour.
Naipaul, often considered in his later years as something of a stooge, dispatched the British White Paper on the 1953 crisis with suitable contempt: ‘A document that never loses its temper and never drops the ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’ or ‘Dr’ from the names of people it helped put in jail’ (Middle Passage, p.95).
In Jamaica, a campaign had begun for the permanent British military presence…
See, for example, a leader article in Public Opinion, 13 February 1954, p.4, as the garrison was switched from the Royal Welch Fusiliers to the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry: ‘Once again Jamaica is to be quietly reminded of its status in the Empire by the presence of occupation troops in the Island.’
the travel arrangements in 1954 were ‘the wrong way round’
Trevor Bailey’s Book, Chapter 5.
PAGE 304
Lock, whom Graveney recalled turning whiter than his dinner jacket…
Graveney, Cricket Through the Covers.
they sprayed Suttle with tomato ketchup…
Lock, For Surrey and England, p.63.
Moss … had managed to secure an enormous bunch of bananas
Interview with the author, 31 March 2015.
Auberon Waugh’s anecdote about his father eating the bananas intended as a treat for the children may be too funny to be true but gives a sense of the situation in post-war Britain. Bustamante, in a typically theatrical gesture, distributed bananas to the British on his first post-war visit.
Trueman was also laden with presents for his family and friends
As remembered by his sister Flo, in conversation with Chris Waters: ‘He came back loaded with all manner of presents … There were pearls, nylon stockings and silk scarves for the girls, and various bits and pieces for the boys’ (Fred Trueman, p.118).
When the Ariguani docked in Avonmouth…
The port of embarkation was usefully located for Graveney, three miles from home, and he was allowed to leave the ship overnight to see his family. His daughter had been born during the Trinidad Test.
‘incidents’ … ‘magnified out of all proportion’
From the various reports of their interviews in the lounge of the Ariguani, Palmer and Hutton essentially repeated their speeches on the quayside in Port Antonio. Hutton did make reference to the ‘tremendous’ noise of the crowds, which reminded him of a ‘cup final at Wembley’ and which he reckoned had ‘not at first been a very pleasant experience’ for the younger players. He and Graveney were now so well versed in tic-tac signals that they were ‘ready to get a job at Newmarket’ (unsigned Johnstone Press syndicated report, 21 April 1954).