Fred Titmus goes to the opera

In his latest book Turning Over the Pebbles: A Life in Cricket and the Mind, Mike Brearley writes of being an intellectual among professional sportsmen and turns it into a reflection on the accident of our birth:

Similar cynicism came my way when I was doing philosophy in my early days playing cricket for Middlesex Fred Titmus, the senior player (whose first game for Middlesex in 1949 coincided with the first of my father's two games, so that after Fred played in my last game at Lords In 1982 he was able to say he 'saw the father in and the son out'), would prod me with questions like: "This philosophy that we're all paying for, what's it all about?" He was being sarcastic, goading, but he was genuinely curious. 

I took his curiosity seriously, and tried to give some sort of answer. In other lives, with different backgrounds, Fred might have been doing philosophy and I might have been born and brought up in King's Cross and had left school at fourteen, and learned cricket, football and boxing at a local boys' club. (I once had a spare ticket for Benjamin Britain's Peter Grimes, and asked him if he'd like to go. We sat in the gods, and Fred was taken with it.)

Brearley talked to the Australian cricket journalist Gideon Haigh about this book and his life for the podcast Cricket, Et Cetera. It's well worth a listen.

Mark Knopfler's father finished second in the 1953 Scottish chess championship

This just in from our Trivia Desk...

His father, Erwin, had arrived in Glasgow in 1939 after fleeing Hungary. Erwin Knopfler was a chessplayer & was runner-up in the Scottish championship of 1953.

(Credit to the formidable Alan McGowan for establishing the identify of E. Knopfler in the cross-table below.)

(2/2) pic.twitter.com/xIqc2bmN6x

— Douglas Griffin (@dgriffinchess) September 19, 2020

And a word too for James Aitken, who not only won the title that year but beat all the other competitors in doing so. As well as winning this championship on ten occasions, he was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the war.

The first test innings I can remember: Colin Milburn at Lord's, 1968

I have a faint memory of an International Cavaliers match on television that may predate it, but the first time I can remember being aware of cricket was England's 1967/8 of the West Indies.

And even then the things that impressed me were the crowd riots and (look away now if you are squeamish) Fred Titmus losing several toes to a boat's propellor.

Apparently, as long as you keep your big toe, you don't much miss them because your balance is not affected. Sure enough, Titmus was to play on for years.

So the first test series I can remember watching is the 1968 Ashes series in England. And the first action I recall is Colin Milburn hitting Australia all round Lord's on the second morning of the second test.

Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can see some of the action here.

Milburn was to lose an eye in car accident the following year. He attempted a comeback for Northamptonshire, but eventually had to accept that his cricket career was over.

In a sad echo of Milburn's misfortune, the other England batsman I can remember hitting Australis around Lord's like this is Ben Hollioake, who was to die in another accident aged only 24.

Six of the Best 945

Geoff Mulgan suggests Britain is suffering from an "intangible curse" that’s corroding our ability to distinguish what’s real and what’s merely a representation.

"The committee received just one, anonymous submission from a supplier. It said that they supplied Boohoo, Missguided, ASOS and others, and that all these brands were constantly asking suppliers to reduce their prices. Even when CEOs and managers at top brands knew the cost of clothing, the witness said, they squeezed prices and watched wages get cut." Olivia Windham Stewart on Leicester's garment trade.

"Black people don’t climb. Africans do not ski. That’s white-people behaviour. I have been hearing all this most of my life." Sahra Ali asks if we can make the great outdoors truly inclusive.

"[Fred] Titmus was in the middle of a brief spell as Surrey’s head coach. He would later become an England selector and is one of several illustrious names to come up more than once when black players discuss the everyday racism of the times." Former Surrey player Lonsdale Skinner recounts his experience of racism in cricket.

"Gasholders are at once contentious and evocative, loved and loathed by sections of society." Historic England offers an introduction to them.

Graham McCann dissects the relationship between Rodney Bewes and James Bolam.

England beat the West Indies at Port of Spain in 1968

West Indies vs England in the winter of 1967/8 is the first test series I followed. I was seven.

It marked John Snow's emergence as England's' premier fast bowler and Alan Knott's arrival as an outstanding wicketkeeper and batsman.

The only decisive result in the five-match series was in the fourth test. England won because of a remarkably generous declaration as Gary Sobers asked them to make 214 in 53 overs.

To a team already used to playing limited-overs cricket, it looked eminently gettable.

England reached their target for the loss of only three wickets. Geoff Boycott opened the innings and finished 80 not out, with Colin Cowdrey contributing 71.

Among England's bowlers were Jeff Jones, father of Simon Jones from the great Ashes series of 2005, and Tony Lock, a star from the 1950s who was recalled after Fred Titmus lost some toes in a boating accident.

Trivial Fact of Christmas Day

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Thanks to a tweet from Andrew Samson, the scorer for Test Match Special, I can reveal that more runs have been scored for England by players born on 25 December than by players born on any other day.

The Christmas-born England players are Alastair Cook, Marcus Trescothick, Simon Jones, Walter Lees and Tich Cornford. (I hadn't heard of the last two either.)

In a close second place is the 24 November contingent, led by Ken Barrington, Ian Botham, Herbert Sutcliffe and Fred Titmus.

Want to hear Alastair Cook singing a Christmas carol?

Fred Titmus played for Middlesex with Mike Brearley's father

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One for the cricket lovers here, but as I have a Fred Titmus label on this blog I may as well use it.

I recently came across the Independent's obituary of Titmus, the Middlesex and England spin bowler, from 2011.

It told the story of his Middlesex debut at the age of 17:

He had been due to sell scorecards at the Lord's Test, where five of the county's regulars were in the England XI. Instead, he became the youngest Middlesex cricketer ever, joining a makeshift side which included the 46-year-old former England captain Gubby Allen and, in his second and last appearance for the county, the schoolmaster Horace Brearley, whose son would also captain England. 

Titmus showed his steady temperament by scoring 13 in an eighth-wicket partnership of 34 with Allen, vital runs in a narrow victory that would lead to Middlesex sharing that summer's championship title with Yorkshire.

That's right: Fred Titmus played for Middlesex with Mike Brearley's father. And thanks to the marvels of Cricket Archive you can read the scorecard.

I am reminded of what used to be one of my favourite Cricket trivia questions: Who played for England with both Colin and Chris Cowdrey? Answers in the comments, please.

The obituary had a second Titmus and Brearley story from 33 years later:

One morning in late August 1982, nearing his 50th birthday, he came down to Lord's, popping his head into the home dressing room before start of play. "Fred, just the man," Brearley exclaimed. "We could do with a third spinner." 

Boots had to be found for him, just as whites had been 33 years earlier when he had made his debut alongside Brearley's father, and on the last afternoon, with time running out, he took three vital wickets. It was Brearley's last match at Lord's, and the victory led once more to the championship title.

You can find that scorecard on Cricket Archive too.

Lord Bonkers remembers Elizabeth Taylor and Fred Titmus

Please could you look into this and run the correct paragraph? That would be Terribly Kind.
B.

The names of Elizabeth Taylor and Fred Titmus, whose passing we mourn today, remind one of many an August day at the Home of Cricket. After John Price had given the openers one up the snoot, the Middlesex captain would turn to Taylor and Titmus in the secure knowledge that no other county possessed spinners better able to exploit the dusty late-season wickets. The dread legend “c Parfitt b Titmus” or “st Murray b Taylor” appeared next to the name of many a celebrated batsman in those warm sixties summers.

Or

The names of Elizabeth Taylor and Fred Titmus, whose passing we mourn today, remind one of the Golden Age of cinema. No party was could be said to have begun until they had made their entrance. It has to be admitted that Taylor’s technique was more suited to the camera: as was sometimes all too apparent to the viewer, Titmus received his training in the Shakespearian theatre. He was also renowned as a “hellraiser”, but together they reigned unchallenged as The First Couple of Hollywood.

More for Fred Titmus fans

I have just posted something on the great man over at The Corridor.

The content will be familiar to regular readers of this blog.

Half Man Half Biscuit: Fuckin' 'ell it's Fred Titmus

With The Duckworth Lewis Method being released tomorrow, it is time for this while it is still the best song about a spin bowler. (Thanks to Hywel, in a comment on that post, for the inspiration.) And here it is, live from Frome.

Half Man, Half Biscuit are a band from Birkenhead, known for their humorous lyrics (and humorous titles in particular) and concern with the minutiae of provincial life.

A 2001 Guardian article by Kevin Sampson gives a good portrait of the band, even if he does think that Fred Titmus is a "fiery Yorkshire pace legend".

As readers of this blog will know, Fred Titmus is a former Middlesex and England off spinner who was evacuated to Rutland as a child during World War II and the subject of a famous anecdote about amateurism and professionalism in cricket.

Lord Bonkers add: In fact, there have been many songs about spin bowlers:

• Single Bedi - Noosha Fox
• The Man with John Childs in his Eyes - Kate Bush
• Norwegian Underwood - The Beatles
• Take Me Home, Wilfred Rhodes - Olivia Newton John
• I'd Like to Teach the World to Singh - The New Seekers
• My Funny Valentine - Elvis Costello

"For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J."

There is a famous cricket story from the days when a strict divide was maintained between amateurs and professionals. It maintains that there was once an announcement at Lord's that ran:

"For F.J. Titmus read Titmus, F.J."

The point was that amateurs had their initials placed before their names and professionals had them afterwards.

I have always suspected this story is apocryphal, but in his My Life in Cricket Fred Titmus confirms it is true and dates it to a match between the MCC and Surrey which took place in May 1950.

Thanks to CricketArchive I can show you the match scorecard. It was quite an achievement for Titmus to be picked for an MCC side that was not far short of test strength at the age of only 17.

Fred Titmus and Rutland

I picked up a secondhand copy of Fred Titmus's autobiography on Saturday. Fans of Half Man Half Biscuit will be disappointed to learn that it is not called Fuckin' 'Ell, it's Fred Titmus but the prosaic My Life in Cricket.

You can read a brief summary of his long career here - he won 53 Test caps over 19 years and played county cricket in five decades, between 1949 and 1982.

Beyond that he did not get on with Mike Brearley or Geoff Boycott and was evacuated to Rutland and Leicester as a little boy during World War II.

Fuckin' 'Ell It's Fred Titmus

For those of you who are not familiar with him, here is a biography:

Fred Titmus, one of cricket's great survivors, was a St Pancras-born Cockney who walked like Charlie Chaplin and wisecracked like Groucho Marx. Despite the rivalry of three other top-class offspinners in Ray Illingworth, John Mortimore and David Allen, he won 53 Test caps over 19 years and played county cricket in five decades, between 1949 and 1982. He even came back after a horrific boating accident in the West indies cost him four toes. 

His artistry as a slow and flighty bowler contrasted with a highly developed practical streak that made him a fine judge of a player. "Too intelligent for his ability," was his appraisal of one; of another, a youngster who scored a dashing hundred against Middlesex at Lord's, he commented: "I like to see someone make a bad 'undred before I make my mind up." 

He made three tours of Australia, and justified his selection each time. But his favourite memory of the country, he claimed, was "The sight of a ground emptying an hour before the close of play." 

John Thicknesse