Perth Voice Interactive

HOWZAT
RON WILLIS of Mt Lawley takes issue with Wisden on the Ashes for, amongst other things, claiming to be ‘the authoritative story of cricket’s greatest rivalry’.

IN 2009 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack shot its albatross—the history of the Ashes urn. Wisden on the Ashes, 644 pages edited by Steven Lynch, took the carcase.

One hoped the latter would come clean about the urn’s origins, even examine the evolution of the Almanack’s explanation that carries a persistent whiff of pulp-fiction.

But no way. Readers with $105 to fork out and expecting from it a holistic approach might feel robbed, as I have felt, and even angry.

Okay, the famous mock obituary that announced the death of English cricket is lifted from the Almanack followed by nutshell treatment of, first, Reginald Brooks who scribbled the obit; and then young Ivo Bligh who recovered the Ashes for England and eventually became Lord Darnley.

Lynch then dismisses Brooks with “Actually [he] was fortunate to be remembered”; and even the Hon. Ivo is given short shrift, his being presented with the urn by a group of Melbourne ladies after one of the tour matches in “up-country Victoria”; nowadays the singsong state.

So much for the 1882 birthplace of the Ashes, Rupertswood mansion in Sunbury—a pleasant drive through bush from Melbourne—courtesy of Sir William Clarke, multi-millionaire farmer and president of Melbourne Cricket Club.

In fact it was Sir William who handed over the little pot after a backyard slogging match—forerunner of today’s pyjama cricket—at Rupertswood before any of the 1883 Tests were played.

Left to its own devices the Almanack would surely have dumped Brooks and even Bligh years ago, but it reckoned without the only book in 1982 that celebrated the Ashes centenary.

Cricket’s Biggest Mystery: The Ashes, by Ronald Willis (Rigby, 1982, long out of print) was the first biography of the urn. Ronald Willis?—that’s me, now Ron and, I trust, more laidback since becoming Test cricket’s persona non grata. Does this prompt a giggle wherever from “Rego” as his family called him?

The “CBM” findings were elaborated on in follow-up books: the first, Beyond Reasonable Doubt (published privately by Joy Munns, of Sunbury); then came Scyld Berry, a former Almanack editor, and Rupert Peploe, a great-grandson of  Bligh, with Cricket’s Burning Passion (Methuen, 2006).

These volumes are the only known sources available for anyone intrigued by the ongoing mysteries associated with cricket’s Holy Grail.

And in the decade since the centenary something intriguing has come about: with everything that’s now written about the urn more related mysteries become apparent.

A lack of space here, alas, prevents relating more about the mysteries; and, in any case, Miles Gonniston (meet him in my novel, The Cappuccino Club at Jacob’s Well) has developed the greater enthusiasm, as mine has waned, for continuing the hard yakka research.

The Ashes “bug” caught me within weeks of first arriving in Perth from York more than 30 years ago. I wandered into Tom Austen’s office on The Terrace seeking books to review. Tom, from Birmingham, was at that time features editor of the state’s daily.

With “help yourself” he flung cupboards open to reveal shelves crammed with tomes waiting for review. The armful I picked out included Arlott and Trueman on Cricket. In this John Arlott, for years the UK’s voice of cricket, mentioned the Ashes urn had never been back to Australia. I became indignant for my adopted country. This prompted five years’ research and the rest, as they say, is history.

A neat, and ironic, consequence came about when Arlott reviewed CBM (Lutterworth Press, UK, 1983) for the Almanack. Never aware of being himself who prompted my research, he questioned the urn’s being cricket’s bigger mystery. What might he have considered a bigger mystery?

There has also been an awesomely lavish Lord’s catalogue made available to those who visited the Ashes traveling exhibition when the urn came to Australia with the Prince and Princess of Wales; lavish, for sure, yet riddled with hiccups that beggar belief.

The Ashes saga apart, there’s sadly even more to whinge about in Wisden on the Ashes. Although well illustrated, it lacks a picture list.

Such references are tediously dovetailed into the selective index. One also searches in vain for a bibliography. Lack of space doesn’t wash. There are five blank pages.

There is also a sub-title and this, to be frank, is simply embarrassing: “The authoritative story of cricket’s greatest rivalry.” Of events on the field, fair enough; but what of the off-field people responsible for the urn—and we should remember the embroidered velvet bag? I’m allergic to screamers (exclamation marks), but rarely have I been more tempted to succumb. As for “authoritative”: a word far too long and ugly to justify being up front in this instance.

It’s appropriate, I feel, in winding up, to return to Reginald Brooks, by now 158 (born in London, October 12, 1854) and the elder son of Shirley Brooks. For about 30 years the Almanack confused the two. The father, an editor of Punch magazine, had been dead for some years when the mock obit appeared.

This scribe also believes Reginald’s colourful yet tragically brief life resonates today and merits revelation of all that is known of him.

Of course, getting rid of the “albatross” cleared the Almanack’s deck, so to speak, in readiness to celebrate now its 150th edition.