A fast bowler from Edinburgh's Fettes College, where he was captain in 1952, Dick Bowman won a Blue at Oxford in 1957, a year in which he obtained 44 of his eventual 51 first-class wickets. He took seven for 60 against Essex at Chelmsford in the last game before the Varsity Match - and later spanked 75 - and toiled through 39 overs in the big one at Lord's, which Oxford lost by an innings. The future MCC secretary Jack Bailey was Bowman's new-ball partner, and remembered: "He was the quickest bowler on either side in the University match that year - he was definitely on the sharp side of fast-medium, and he wasn't too far away from Brian Statham's pace when he played for his county." Bowman turned out occasionally for his native Lancashire, and later for Cumberland, before concentrating on running The Inn at Whitewell, a sumptuous hotel (with room-keys attached to cricket balls) in the Forest of Bowland, just south of the Lake District. The Times reviewed it in 2003: "Richard Bowman, the hotelier, has been on a mission to eradicate pomposity and pretension from fine living while taking care not to sacrifice style, comfort and, above all, humour."
Steven Lynch