I remember Trevor Bailey talking about Ken Farnes, but I don't think I've ever seen film of him before today.
Farnes stood 6 feet, five inches tall, which made him a giant in the 1930s. In that decade he took 690 wickets at 21.45 for Essex and Cambridge University.
He also played 15 tests for England between 1934 and 1939, taking 60 wickets at 28.64.
Cricket Web has a good article about him, and describes his last days:
Farnes joined the RAF and trained as a pilot, largely in Canada, and returned to the UK in 1941 where he was killed on the evening of 20 October 1941 near Chipping Warden in Northamptonshire.
He had been based there for a month, readying himself for the job of flying Wellington bombers. He had wanted to be a fighter pilot but his height prevented that.
On the evening of his death he was taking his first unsupervised night flight as a training exercise. A landing went wrong and Farnes was killed instantly.
And for trivia fans:
He was single at the time of his death and had never been married, although it seems he had found his life partner, a divorcee whose only daughter went on to marry the film critic Barry Norman and who retained into old age fond memories of the man she believed would have been her step father but for that tragic night.
