Obituaries index: T-Z
Tamblyn, Gordon, died in Melbourne on December 31, 2001, aged 83. His debut for Victoria was the match in 1938-39 that attracted a second-day crowd of 17,777, a Shield record for the Adelaide Oval, hoping to see Don Bradman hit a record seventh consecutive hundred. They went home disappointed (Bradman made 5), though no more than the 20-year-old Tamblyn, lbw the previous day for a duck. He put this right next game with a hundred at Perth, where he also kept wicket in Ben Barnett's absence, and in 1939-40 he was Victoria's regular opener until he gashed his knee on a boundary fence. After the war Tamblyn picked up more or less where he had left off with a century against Queensland, finishing two short of his career-best 136 at the Gabba in January 1941, and there were nineties as well against Australian Services and South Australia. However, he played only three games in 1946-47, including MCC's visit, to wrap up a 21-game career for Victoria in which he scored 1,324 runs at 40.12 with four centuries. His son Geoff played once for Victoria, against MCC in 1974-75, and went on to become chairman of the Victorian Cricket Association and finance director of the Australian Cricket Board.
Tamhane, Narendra Shankar, died in Mumbai on March 19, 2002, aged 71. He kept wicket for India in 21 Tests, bringing off 35 catches and 16 stumpings, and the Australian wicket-keeper Wally Grout compared his neat, skilful method to that of the renowned Don Tallon. Despite his accidental introduction to the art, for he was originally a slow bowler and first put on the gloves when his club's keeper was unavailable, Naren Tamhane was playing Ranji Trophy cricket for Bombay at 22 and a season later, 1954-55, was ever-present during India's first series in Pakistan. He took Subhash Gupte's leg-spin and Vinoo Mankad's slow left-armers like a natural, and his 19 victims included seven stumpings, many made with his trademark removal of a single bail. He also hit an unbeaten 54 in his second Test but, as an average of 10.22 attests, batting was never his strength at this level.
Tamhane played in all but two of India's next 13 Tests. Then he was in and out of the side as the selectors preferred Nana Joshi and Budhi Kunderan for their batting. Yet his keeping in the 1959 Headingley and Oval Tests drew praise from knowledgeable observers, and significantly he was called up later that year for the Test against Australia at Kanpur, where a newly laid pitch was expected to take spin. He made only one dismissal, but that second-innings stumping of the opener Colin McDonald, off Jasu Patel, was vital. McDonald had been one of the few Australians to play Patel's off-spin with any confidence; Patel went on to finish with 14 wickets and India won by 119 runs. Tamhane played only two more Tests after that, against Pakistan in 1960- 61. His first-class career ended three seasons later, after 93 games in which he made 175 catches and 78 stumpings, becoming the first to register 100 dismissals in the Ranji Trophy. His 1,459 runs at 18.23 included one century, 109 not out for Bombay against Baroda in 1958-59. He served as a national selector throughout the 1980s and as chairman in 1991-92.
Tatham, Francis Hugh Currer, died in Lewes on April 21, 2002, aged 85. Editor of Whitaker's Almanack from 1950 until 1981, "Tom" Tatham also saw Wisden Cricketers' Almanack through to publication during most of that time. Between 1938 and 1978, Wisden was published under licence by J. Whitaker and Sons, and from 1948 the responsibility of in-house editing, proofreading, indexing and passing for press rested on Tatham's broad shoulders. As well as intellectual rigour and meticulous attention to detail, he brought to the job a lifelong love of cricket. He was a keen player in his younger days, an MCC member and a knowledgeable watcher of the game. On seeing a death notice in the papers, he might remark, "That must be so-and-so who occasionally played for Essex - just missed a century against Kent in 1938."
Taylor, Kenneth Alexander, died in Nottingham on April 5, 2002, aged 85. Ken Taylor was cricket manager of Nottinghamshire from 1978 to 1990 and so provided the guiding hand when they won the County Championship in 1981 and 1987, and Lord's finals in 1987 and 1989. His first essay into county cricket had not known such success. Taylor had been playing club cricket in London when, in response to an advert in the Sporting Chronicle, he went to Edgbaston for a trial and was taken on the Warwickshire staff in 1939. The war scotched his immediate prospects, but a commission in the Royal Warwicks developed the management skills that would serve Nottinghamshire so effectively. After demobilisation, and recovered from the wounds he received in the Normandy landings, he took up Warwickshire's invitation to rejoin them and, opening the innings, began with 82 against Sussex. In 1947 he was the established No. 3, scoring 1,259 runs at 26.22 and hitting what proved to be his only century, 102 against Gloucestershire at Edgbaston. Yet within two years he was in and out of the side, batting up and down the order, and he was not retained after 1949. In 87 first-class games he had scored 3,145 runs at 21.69, taken one wicket and held 42 catches.
Now 36, Taylor went to work for the East Midlands Electricity Board in Nottingham. As a member of Nottingham Forest CC, he was on the Notts committee from 1963 and experienced at close hand the county's struggles in the bottom reaches of the Championship. "People were just going aimlessly through the motions," said Clive Rice, the Championship-winning captain, whom Taylor signed to replace Garry Sobers as overseas player in 1975 when he was chairman of the cricket committee. "Ken picked up the club by the scruff of the neck and moulded us into a winning unit. He was helped in this by the unholy fallout from World Series Cricket that resulted in Rice being sacked in 1978, replaced by Richard Hadlee and then reinstated after learned advice. At a stroke Taylor, in his first season as full-time cricket manager, had two world-class all-rounders, not to mention the England batsman Derek Randall, around whom to build his team. Rice and Hadlee, disciplined to the core, gave Nottinghamshire their professional edge; Taylor, compassionate though no less lacking in purpose, made sure there was always a human touch in the dressing-room. It proved a winning combination.
Thomas, William Owen, died in Sheringham on August 8, 2000, aged 79. Dulwich captain in 1940, his fourth year in the XI, "Spongey" Thomas went up to Cambridge after war service and played three first-class games for the University in 1948 after taking four for 58 against Essex in a non-first-class match. A slow left-armer who had given the ball quite a tweak in his school days, Thomas took only three wickets at 46.33 apiece. His one other first-class match was for MCC at Lord's in 1954, where his left-handed batting helped Jack Davies add 67 for the ninth wicket in a failed attempt to prevent their old university from winning. Thomas also played for Norfolk in the 1950s while teaching at Gresham's School.
Thursting, Laurence Denis, died in Leicester on November 15, 2001, aged 86. He joined Leicestershire in 1938 from the Lord's groundstaff to bowl left-arm spin, but it was his batting that ensured he was something of a regular that season. When offered the chance to open with Les Berry in the recurring absence of the county captain Stewart Dempster, himself a stand-in opener for the injured Fred Prentice, Thursting immediately showed the temperament for the job. His 94 in the second innings at Edgbaston occupied four and a quarter hours, saved Leicestershire from defeat, and remained his highest score. But his bowling failed to meet expectations and he received fewer opportunities in 1939. One post-war match against Yorkshire in 1947 left him with figures of 882 runs at 25.20 and 13 wickets at 50.76 from 29 games.
Tovey, Edward Richard, who died in Sydney on May 31, 2002, aged 71, kept wicket once for Queensland, in 1957. Dick Tovey also had three summers with Auckland, including their Plunket Shield success in 1963-64. WCAA.
Toynbee, Lawrence Leifchild, who died in Malton on January 3, 2002, aged 79, mixed his playing experience as a cricketer with his artist's gift for conveying the movement and spirit of sport in an acclaimed series of cricket paintings. These include Hit to Leg, Cricket at Canterbury and Cricket in The Parks, all of which may be viewed at Lord's, and The Nursery End at Lord's. Toynbee, a lively medium-fast bowler from his days in the Ampleforth XI, knew The Parks well. He had been Oxford's leading wicket-taker in 1942, when he gained a wartime Blue, and was disappointed not to be given a chance to play first-class cricket on his post-war return to Oxford to train at the Ruskin School of Drawing. Perhaps an Oxford side flush with former servicemen was circumspect about the accuracy of a fast bowler whose tank had reputedly taken out a French cow and run over a wounded British soldier.
Tshwete, Stephen Vukile, died in Bloemfontein from pneumonia and kidney failure, following a back operation, on April 26, 2002. He was 63. His passion for sport sustained him through 15 years' imprisonment on Robben Island for anti-apartheid activities and made him the obvious choice, when Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island in 1990, to ensure equality for all his countrymen as South Africa was allowed back into international sport. While a member of the African National Council in exile in Zimbabwe, Steve Tshwete had helped bridge the doctrinal chasm between the opposing South African Cricket Union and South African Cricket Board, and in 1991 he was at Lord's alongside his friend and ally, Ali Bacher, to lobby successfully for his country's readmission to the ICC. Not for nothing was he dubbed South Africa's "Mr Fix-It". He also argued for their inclusion in the 1992 World Cup and was one of the first to congratulate the players when they beat Australia at Sydney in their first match. Tshwete was appointed Minister of Sport and Recreation in 1994 and since 1999 had been Minister of Safety and Security. Sadly he didn't live to see his nephew, the Border fast bowler Monde Zondeki, make his debut for South Africa in December 2002.
Turner, Herbert Wilfred, who died in Bendigo on February 24, 2002, aged 80, was a stocky left-hander who played 12 times for Victoria, making 96 on debut against Western Australia at the MCG in 1948. WCAA.
van Straubenzee, Lt-Colonel Henry Hamilton, DSO, OBE, who died on April 12, 2002, aged 88, was a career soldier who played three first-class games for the Army just before World War II, as well as a Championship match for Essex against Sussex at Colchester in 1938. He was four not out when Essex declared at 535 for six, and was given six overs to bowl his left-arm spinners as they progressed to an innings victory. He did not take a wicket. However, it would be nice to think that there were moments during the Dunkirk withdrawal when he was able to reflect on balmy days at Fenner's and dismissing Paul Gibb, Norman Yardley and the Mann brothers. His ten first-class wickets cost 18.50 apiece; his best was four for 96 against Cambridge in 1939. He also hit his highest score, 38, in that game to complete a career aggregate of 56 at an average of 28.00. On retiring from the Army, van Straubenzee joined the board of W. H. Smith, became managing director in 1968, and was a noted authority on fly fishing. Through Jane Turner, who eloped with a Dutch officer named van Straubenzee in the early 1700s, he was a direct descendant of the family that founded Sir William Turner's Almshouses at Kirkleatham in Cleveland.
Walford, Michael Moore, died in Sherborne on January 16, aged 86. Somerset's cast of strolling players was legion in the days when amateurs regularly came in for the occasional game at the professionals' expense. But few matched the impact Micky Walford made when he turned up in mid-season after a year's schoolmastering at Sherborne. The runs rattled effortlessly from his bat: in 52 games for Somerset between 1946 and 1953 he scored 3,395 at an average of 40.90. He impressed on his first appearance at Taunton, going in at No. 7 against the Indian tourists and contributing an unbeaten 141 to Somerset's innings victory. Promotion to No. 3 was immediate, 139 against Surrey at Weston-super-Mare followed several matches later and, with 472 runs at 52.44 in seven games, he finished fifth in the national averages behind Wally Hammond, Cyril Washbrook, Denis Compton and Martin Donnelly.
Not that the cognoscenti were surprised. At 30 Walford had form going back to his schooldays at Rugby, where he was four years in the XI and played for the Public Schools at Lord's in 1934. After going up to Oxford that year, he won cricket Blues in 1936 and 1938, as well as rugby and hockey Blues in three years. As a centre-threequarter - his Oxford wing in 1935 and 1936 was the flying Prince Obolensky - he twice made the final England rugby trials, was a travelling reserve and played in wartime internationals; as a hockey wing-half he won 17 England caps, often as captain, and played all five games for Great Britain in the silver-medal side that lost the Olympic final to India in London in 1948. Walford's maiden century, 201 not out in two and a half hours for the University against MCC at Lord's in 1938, was the 12th-fastest double-hundred at the time. His second, 114 out of 177 while he was at the wicket, had a curiosity value in that the match at The Oval was of two days' duration, so Oxford's players could rest ahead of the Varsity Match, yet retained its first-class status.
Somerset obtained a special registration for Walford after he wrote from Germany, where he was with the Royal Corps of Signals, to enquire about playing during school holidays. In contrast to his expansive though nonetheless orthodox strokeplay and his colourful Harlequin cap, he was taciturn by nature, individualistic, and played cricket more for its intellectual challenges than its camaraderie. Whatever the easy-going Somerset professionals made of this latest privateer, however, they couldn't begrudge him his runs or his athletic cover fielding. Opening with Harold Gimblett in 1947, he put together a sequence of 96 and 52 at Trent Bridge, 90 and 101 against Glamorgan at Weston and, as his seaside pièce de résistance, a career-best 264 against Hampshire, hitting 40 fours before falling 28 short of L. C. H. Palairet's 1896 record for Somerset. The Olympics restricted him to three games in 1948, though his brief season was not without incident. At Eastbourne he put on 180 with Gimblett, then saw him progress to a triple-century. Next game, back at Taunton, he was the cause of Len Hutton's bizarre dismissal, adjudged run out after leaving the crease to avoid impeding the wicket-keeper as he took a return throw. When the ball bounced out of the keeper's gloves and rebounded off Hutton's pads on to the stumps, Walford alone appealed. The umpire upheld the appeal, and as England's premier batsman went on his way, an embarrassed silence followed him. "It was something done in the heat of the moment," Walford told David Foot some 40 years later, confessing that the appeal stayed on his conscience for a long time. Johnny Lawrence, born in Leeds, added injury to insult by taking Yorkshire's last four wickets in five balls, including a hat-trick.
Walford's arrival in 1949, and his 763 runs in nine games, turned round a ten-game losing streak, while his first four games in 1950 produced four half-centuries and then another hundred at Weston, something of a favourite watering-hole - six of his nine first-class hundreds were made there. Going with MCC to Canada, where he took a century off Alberta, accounted for his 1951 vacation, after which there were just two more summers before he learnt that Somerset would be using his special registration to acquire someone else. In 97 first-class games, which included a few end-of-season festival matches, he made 5,327 runs at 33.71, took eight wickets at 31.12 with his occasional left-arm slows and held 50 catches. From 1954 to 1962 he played for Dorset - he had played for his native Durham in 1937 - and in 1955, at the age of 39, he became the first minor-county batsman since 1911 to score 1,000 runs. Sherborne boys, meanwhile, continued to benefit from his cricket, rugby and hockey coaching; in due course he was the school's second master.
Walker, Harold, who died in Kettering in November 2000, aged 82, opened the batting for Northamptonshire in their first-ever tied match, against Essex in May 1947. A 28-year-old amateur from Desborough, he had been invited to play in Dennis Brookes's absence and scored one and seven.
Weir, Harold Stanley, who died in Maryborough on June 11, 2002, aged 98, had been Queensland's oldest living first-class cricketer. A left-handed all-rounder, Stan Weir played for them only once, against MCC in 1928-29 - their first victory over an English side in eight attempts. WCAA.
Wilkinson, Joan, who died in Foulridge on April 17, 2002, aged 83, played 13 Tests for England between 1948-49 and 1957-58. A duck on debut at the MCG did not augur well, but by the 1954 New Zealand series "Wilkie" Wilkinson was established at No. 3 and contributed 185 runs at 46.25. She struggled after that except when making a career-best 90 against New Zealand at Auckland in 1957-58 and finished with an average of 19.81 from 436 runs. Under five feet tall, she was exception-ally nimble around the crease for someone never the most mobile in the field. Her lack of inches had militated against her when she went to enlist in the WAAF in 1939, but such was her prowess in Lancashire sporting circles that she was called up two years later and became a cricket, hockey and PT instructor. Staying on in the WAAF after the war, Joan Wilkinson also represented Lancashire, North of England and Berkshire.
Wilkinson, Leonard Litton, died in Barrow-in-Furness on September 3, 2002, aged 85. For one August he sparkled brilliantly, then just as suddenly his star waned. "The only thing I can think of," Len Wilkinson told the cricket writer Brian Bearshaw, "is that I tried to be too perfect, particularly with the googly. I had an England cap and as an England player I had to be good." He hadn't taken up leg-spin bowling until he was 15, yet a month after turning 22 he was playing Test cricket in South Africa. The selectors could hardly ignore him. In 1938, his first full season with Lancashire, he had taken 151 wickets at 23.28 in 36 games, bowling thoughtfully, delivering the ball from a full height, often getting sharp turn and rarely dropping short. He was a good slip fielder besides, with a seemingly elastic reach, and had held 26 catches.
Wilkinson had joined the Old Trafford staff in 1936, being offered professional terms on the same day as Winston Place, and made his first-class debut next season against the New Zealanders, bowling the tourists' captain, "Curly" Page, in his first over. He went on to take 22 wickets in seven games, including nine on a good batting pitch at Trent Bridge, and returned 12 for 91 for the Second Eleven against Surrey Seconds in the Minor Counties Challenge Match at The Oval, another good batting strip.
Though he took time to get going in 1938, a 12-over spell of five for 27 at Worcester and a hat-trick in an eight-wicket match return at Hove showed why Lancashire had been playing him in every game. Then in August he caught fire, beginning with 12 for 125 at Canterbury and reaping 58 wickets in the last nine Championship fixtures. This included eight for 86 at Swansea, and altogether that season he took 11 five-fors with two ten-wicket matches. Only Wilfred Rhodes, with 154 wickets when he was 20 in 1898, had taken more wickets in a season at a younger age than the 21-year-old Wilkinson.
Form and fortune stayed with him when he went to South Africa that autumn with MCC and, despite being the fourth spinner in seniority, he was selected ahead of Doug Wright for the First Test and also played in the Third and Fourth. But nigh-perfect pitches ensured that batsmen held the upper hand, and his seven wickets came at a price of 38.71 each. The cost in confidence was even higher. Although he headed the tour averages with 44 wickets at 18.86 - only Wright and Hedley Verity took more - Wilkinson was virtually unrecognisable as the same bowler when he resumed in 1939 after an early-season hand injury. He did achieve career-best figures of eight for 53, and 12 in the match, against Hampshire at Old Trafford at the end of May, but 63 wickets that summer at 30.85 was a definite turn for the worse, and the outbreak of war allowed no recovery. He injured his knee at Fenner's in Lancashire's first post-war match, so missing the rest of the season, and in 1947 he played only twice. His county cricket was over; he retired to the leagues and a newsagent's. In 77 games he had taken 282 wickets at 25.25 and 53 catches. No batsman to speak of, he scored 321 runs at 7.64 with a highest of 48 against Worcestershire at Old Trafford to launch that once-in-a-lifetime season.
Willett, Michael David, died at Sanderstead on January 24, 2002, aged 68. In another time, or another county perhaps, Mike Willett's career might have been different. But he joined the Oval staff as a teenager in 1950, with Surrey on the cusp of the roll that brought eight titles in nine years. Opportunities for apprentice batsmen were thinly scattered, and when they came Willett never converted his second-team form into first-team runs in the way that contemporaries such as Micky Stewart, Ken Barrington and John Edrich did. When at last he established himself in the early 1960s, hitting 1,000 runs three times in four seasons, a serious knee injury cruelly cut his career short.
Like Stewart, he played amateur football for Corinthian-Casuals, and there was something of the amateur in the way he played his cricket. His debut, in the last Championship game of 1955, was a low-scoring affair in which only he, with 25, and Jim Laker reached double figures, adding 63 of Surrey's 101: they still won by eight wickets in two days. Between then and 1960, however, he managed only 18 Championship games. And when in 1960 Fred Trueman, his RAF team-mate back in their National Service days, dismissed him for a pair while twice taking three wickets in five balls, Willett may have wondered if his immediate future lay in the family motor business rather than cricket. Then, in his first game of 1961, he hit his maiden hundred - 105 not out against Worcestershire - and the wheel turned, even if Surrey did slump to a worst-ever 15th in the Championship. In August he made 126 against Kent, and finished the summer with 1,593 first-class runs at 30.63. Though the next season produced barely more than 500, he reached his thousand again in 1963, Stewart's first year as captain; his two hundreds included an unbroken stand of 193 with Barrington against the champions, Yorkshire. In 1964 he was the ninth Englishman in the first-class averages, making 1,789 runs at 45.87. Among his four hundreds was the fastest of the summer (80 minutes against Middlesex at The Oval), while in equalling his career-best 126, against Hampshire at Bournemouth, he struck his second fifty in 30 minutes, with 48 coming in boundaries. At Gravesend, Willett and Barrington put on 230 for the fourth wicket against Kent. But a cartilage operation in 1965 sidelined him from mid-May to late August and, while his fielding remained vibrant, he never rediscovered his batting form. Two years later he retired and concentrated his sporting energies on club cricket and golf. In 172 first-class games he had scored 6,535 runs at 28.66, including eight hundreds, held 95 catches, and taken 23 wickets at 48.04 with the medium pace that served Surrey well in Second Eleven cricket.
Williams, Laurie Rohan, died in Kingston, Jamaica on September 8, 2002, aged 33, when he swerved to avoid a damaged section of road and his car collided with an oncoming bus. His 23-year-old half-brother, Kevin Jennison, was also killed. Although Williams had opened the bowling for Jamaica against England on his first-class debut in February 1990, his method was mainly medium seam and swing rather than out-and- out pace and was well suited to limited-overs cricket. In 15 one-day internationals for West Indies between 1995-96, when he grabbed three for 16 in five overs against New Zealand in his second match, and the 2000-01 Carlton Series in Australia, he took 18 wickets at 30.88. However, his aggregate of 124 one-day international runs, with a highest score of 41, reveals neither his elegance nor ability at the crease. The highest of his three first-class hundreds, 135 for Jamaica against Windwards, helped make him the second-highest runmaker in the 1999-2000 Busta Cup. Williams's best first-class bowling, six for 26 in 1996-97, was also at Windwards' expense. In 58 first-class matches for West Indies A and Jamaica, he scored 2,002 runs at 24.71 and took 170 wickets at 23.17. In the weeks preceding the accident Williams had played in the early rounds of the one-day Red Stripe Bowl, but had been dropped for the semi-final and final. Many paid tribute to his commitment to Jamaican cricket, while the former West Indies wicket-keeper Jackie Hendriks, president of the Jamaican Cricket Association, said he was "a gentleman on and off the field".
Wilson, Arthur Edward, died in Redmarley D'Abitot on July 29, 2002, aged 92. "Andy" Wilson was one of those wicket-keepers, diminutive and undemonstrative, who are so efficient that their craftsmanship passes virtually unnoticed, though by no means unappreciated by fellow players and the county faithful. He played 318 times for Gloucestershire between 1936 and 1955, following seven games for Middlesex in 1932 and 1933. He had been a slow left-arm bowler when he joined the Lord's groudstaff, where he was a contemporary of Denis Compton and a future Gloucestershire captain in George Emmett, but when called on to keep for the Young Professionals against the Young Amateurs he revealed a natural talent for the job. With Fred Price established as Middlesex's keeper, there were few calls for Wilson's safe hands. When he made his county debut at Worcester, it was as a gutsy lower-order left-hander, helping add 94 for the ninth wicket, and later that season he made 53 at Cardiff in an unbroken ninth-wicket stand of 137 with J. W. Hearne. In 1935 he helped Middlesex Seconds win the Minor Counties Championship and then decided to try his hand in the West Country.
Almost 26, Wilson still had to qualify by residence before he could play Championship cricket for Gloucestershire. That meant two years of waiting, so it was 1938 before he was keeping to Tom Goddard and Reg Sinfield as they took 100 wickets apiece. He also scored 1,138 runs, including 130 against Middlesex at Lord's, a mischievously satisfying maiden hundred during which he and Billy Neale added 192 for the eighth wicket. Against Lancashire at Bristol two months later he was very much the junior partner as Wally Hammond steamed past 2,000 runs for the season with 271 - it was still only mid-July - and they established Gloucestershire's eighth-wicket record of 239. "Run when I tell you," was Hammond's instruction to the incoming Wilson. "And I didn't face a ball for eight overs," Wilson would recall. He made 83. He was not the prettiest of batsmen but he drove and pulled powerfully.
Pressed into opening in 1946, after wartime service in the RAF, he again reached his thousand; he did so every year to 1950 and again in 1953 at the age of 43. That last season he set a world record with ten catches in a match - six in Hampshire's first innings at Portsmouth and four in their second. In due course he would give the gloves he wore at Portsmouth to another Gloucestershire keeper, Jack Russell, whom he encouraged when Russell was still a schoolboy. Back in 1947, when Gloucestershire fought Middlesex nip and tuck for the Championship, Wilson's 62 dismissals had included 30 stumpings as Goddard's fiercely spun off-breaks and Sam Cook's subtle slow left-armers bemused visiting batsmen on the new sand-and-clay strips at Bristol. Goddard took 206 wickets and Cook 120 in the title race. In a career of 328 matches, Wilson finished with 425 catches, 176 stumpings and 10,744 runs at 25.28. His highest score of 188 came when opening against Sussex at Chichester in 1949. From 1950 he doubled as Gloucestershire's coach. On retiring he moved into journalism, covering cricket, soccer and rugby for a number of papers, and also worked for the National Farmers' Union.
Wilson, George Arthur, died in Oxford on September 27, 2002, aged 86. His highest score of 55 not out in 15 pre-war appearances as an amateur for Yorkshire came against Northamptonshire at Scarborough in 1938. By the time he and Brian Sellers had added an unbroken 84 for the sixth wicket, Northants looked well and truly beaten. Altogether Wilson scored 352 runs at 17.60 and, bowling slow left-arm, took one wicket.
Wollocombe, Richard Henry, died in Bath on June 7, 2002, aged 76. He captained Wellington College in 1943 and, on going up to Oxford in 1949 after the Army and a brief spell in advertising, played four games for the University in 1951 and four more in 1952 as a leg-spinning all-rounder. He also played against them for the Free Foresters in 1951, scoring an unbeaten 38 in the second innings, though by then he was out of the running for a Blue. His glorious 119 in 125 minutes against Worcester-shire suggested 1952 might be his year, but it wasn't to be. The final bowling place went to the 1951 Blue, Bill Mitchell. In his nine first-class games Wollocombe scored 314 runs at 22.42 and took ten wickets at 62.30 with his leg-breaks. He also played some Minor Counties cricket for Berkshire in 1950, and after university returned to the world of advertising.
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