I left Eltham College to go to university after the summer of 1969. Eltham was what was then called a ‘Direct Grant’ institution: free places were available for academically able pupils at this ‘School for the Sons of Missionaries’. At eleven and in the top class of the Maypole County Primary School I could spell and do math, and my IQ rating just about cut the mustard, despite a certain confusion in the non-verbal area - I could never see how all those strange diagrams on the test paper related to each other when twisted through 90 degrees. The Maypole’s distinguished alumni included Mick Jagger and (later) Min Patel, the Kent left-arm spinner who played cricket just the once for England. Eltham could claim Eric Liddell (of ‘Chariots of Fire’ fame), and Mervyn Peake, the artist and author of proto-fantasy novels, but sadly no cricketers or rock n’rollers. Despite that drawback, it was a lovely, leafy place to attend school, and my sixth-form (Grades 12 and 13) was very happy indeed. I chose to study Latin, Greek and Ancient History largely because the Head of Classics, David Herbert, was a very good cricketer as well as a clever man.
There were two cricket squares at Eltham. The lesser of the two stood in front of the school’s pleasant 19th century façade. The playing area was small, and you’d have thought that a satisfying hit through one of the windows on the building was very feasible, although I never saw it done. However there was also a very short boundary on the other side. To prevent cars coming through the hedge onto the ground a tall street lamp had been erected there where Grove Park Road turned, and I do remember its very top being clanged by what appeared to be a remarkable mis-hit during an old boys match (American readers, please note, ‘old boys’ are past students: sometimes very past!). The actual pitch on the 2nd XI ground was slow and rather unsatisfactory: the ball would hold in the lush turf, and it was hard to play confident strokes. When I was younger it suited my brand of loopy low-bouncing, in-swinging medium pace. In my under-15 year I picked up a hatful of fortuitous wickets there.
The senior ground lay on a sunny slope on the other side of the plane trees. The surface here was harder and nicer to play on, and there was a pavilion which some of us used for table-tennis illicitly during lunchtimes in the winter months. There it was that for the first time I made a few runs in a junior house match, and started to believe, after the discouragements of a silly and misguidedly macho Geography teacher, that I could bat a bit. It was only 38 not out from Carey House’s total of about 55 (my house team was a poor one – so poor that they’d made me captain!) and Chalmers - the opposition team - dropped the four catches that I offered them, but never mind, that kind of detail never appears in the scorebook. Martin Shankleman was one of the generous fielders: I believe he went on to a distinguished career as a BBC economics correspondent, although of course there might not only be one Martin Shankleman.
There too in 1969 I carried off the only sporting cup I’ve ever won. In the late nineteen-sixties there was a vogue for ‘single-wicket’ competitions, in which one person was pitted against another in a very short form of the game. You had four overs to bat against your opponent, who of course had to bowl all twenty four balls consecutively – very tiring for a quick bowler! A wicketkeeper and nine fielders were naively trusted with impartiality by fielding for both players. For the most part I played very undistinguished cricket, but managed to do just enough to get through the first three or four rounds. The final must have been unutterably boring to watch, and almost in itself enough to sign the death warrant for this form of the game. I scraped eight almost strokeless runs before giving a tame catch in the third over. My opponent, Phil Raisey, must have been confident of winning – he was pretty confident about most things as I recall. But he unaccountably missed an innocuous straight ball and was clean bowled for three, leaving me to collect the trophy from Judy Rambridge, the school secretary, indeed the only woman in the school, who planted a kiss on my (reddening) cheek. That was even more of a shock than my win: things weren’t usually done like that at Eltham. I hope her subsequent reprimand wasn’t too stern. Moral: single wicket competitions only work where betting’s allowed. At Eltham, although there was a bookie’s just round the corner, visiting it got you chucked out.
The school keeps in touch. It’s changed a great deal. There are now girls as well as boys, which is certainly a change for the better. There’s probably a whole deal more kissing. But the ethos has changed in other ways too, partly by fault of consecutive central governments, and I don’t go back. However this year one young Elthamian has accomplished a feat which will make it to next year’s Wisden where all that is noteworthy about cricket is written down for posterity. In an Under 15 match, Jack Robertson presided over the scoring of 48 runs in just one over. There were four no-balls (invalid deliveries). These add one run each to the score and give the batsman an extra ball. Jack missed one of the (therefore ten) balls bowled in total, but hit five fours and four sixes from the other nine. And this is a world record – wow! - as the school song has it: Floreat Elthamia! Stand and flourish ever!
There were two cricket squares at Eltham. The lesser of the two stood in front of the school’s pleasant 19th century façade. The playing area was small, and you’d have thought that a satisfying hit through one of the windows on the building was very feasible, although I never saw it done. However there was also a very short boundary on the other side. To prevent cars coming through the hedge onto the ground a tall street lamp had been erected there where Grove Park Road turned, and I do remember its very top being clanged by what appeared to be a remarkable mis-hit during an old boys match (American readers, please note, ‘old boys’ are past students: sometimes very past!). The actual pitch on the 2nd XI ground was slow and rather unsatisfactory: the ball would hold in the lush turf, and it was hard to play confident strokes. When I was younger it suited my brand of loopy low-bouncing, in-swinging medium pace. In my under-15 year I picked up a hatful of fortuitous wickets there.
The senior ground lay on a sunny slope on the other side of the plane trees. The surface here was harder and nicer to play on, and there was a pavilion which some of us used for table-tennis illicitly during lunchtimes in the winter months. There it was that for the first time I made a few runs in a junior house match, and started to believe, after the discouragements of a silly and misguidedly macho Geography teacher, that I could bat a bit. It was only 38 not out from Carey House’s total of about 55 (my house team was a poor one – so poor that they’d made me captain!) and Chalmers - the opposition team - dropped the four catches that I offered them, but never mind, that kind of detail never appears in the scorebook. Martin Shankleman was one of the generous fielders: I believe he went on to a distinguished career as a BBC economics correspondent, although of course there might not only be one Martin Shankleman.
There too in 1969 I carried off the only sporting cup I’ve ever won. In the late nineteen-sixties there was a vogue for ‘single-wicket’ competitions, in which one person was pitted against another in a very short form of the game. You had four overs to bat against your opponent, who of course had to bowl all twenty four balls consecutively – very tiring for a quick bowler! A wicketkeeper and nine fielders were naively trusted with impartiality by fielding for both players. For the most part I played very undistinguished cricket, but managed to do just enough to get through the first three or four rounds. The final must have been unutterably boring to watch, and almost in itself enough to sign the death warrant for this form of the game. I scraped eight almost strokeless runs before giving a tame catch in the third over. My opponent, Phil Raisey, must have been confident of winning – he was pretty confident about most things as I recall. But he unaccountably missed an innocuous straight ball and was clean bowled for three, leaving me to collect the trophy from Judy Rambridge, the school secretary, indeed the only woman in the school, who planted a kiss on my (reddening) cheek. That was even more of a shock than my win: things weren’t usually done like that at Eltham. I hope her subsequent reprimand wasn’t too stern. Moral: single wicket competitions only work where betting’s allowed. At Eltham, although there was a bookie’s just round the corner, visiting it got you chucked out.
The school keeps in touch. It’s changed a great deal. There are now girls as well as boys, which is certainly a change for the better. There’s probably a whole deal more kissing. But the ethos has changed in other ways too, partly by fault of consecutive central governments, and I don’t go back. However this year one young Elthamian has accomplished a feat which will make it to next year’s Wisden where all that is noteworthy about cricket is written down for posterity. In an Under 15 match, Jack Robertson presided over the scoring of 48 runs in just one over. There were four no-balls (invalid deliveries). These add one run each to the score and give the batsman an extra ball. Jack missed one of the (therefore ten) balls bowled in total, but hit five fours and four sixes from the other nine. And this is a world record – wow! - as the school song has it: Floreat Elthamia! Stand and flourish ever!
