An Unusual Celebrity: The Many Cricketing Lives of Bill Bowes

Martin Chandler | 7:54am BST 14 July 2024

Published: 2024
Pages: 318
Author: Lonsdale, Jeremy
Publisher: Pitch
Rating: 4.5 stars

As a youngster, the names of the players and the bare bones of history apart, I didn’t know a great deal about cricket before the Second World War. This was my father’s fault as his collection of Wisden started with the 1947 edition, so I was unable in those far off days to spend the hours poring over scores, seasonal averages and match reports for that era in the way that I could for the post war years.

Thus I had heard of Bill Bowes, but didn’t know a great deal about him beyond his name and his achievements in 1946 and 1947. In fact my main reason for recognising his name was because I had noticed that in 1947 and 1948 a JB Bowes had played a few times for Lancashire, and I recall wondering if the pair were related. There was no reason for that thought beyond the fact that the pair were contemporaries and the name was not a common one, and I have to confess to rather losing interest when once my father told me that the pair were  definitely not brothers.

So Bill Bowes soon returned to the back of my mind, little more than a name from what I knew was an immensely strong Yorkshire side in the 1930s, until 1983. I was a student at the time and found myself alone in the television room of my hall of residence one November evening when BBC2 screened a documentary timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Bodyline tour. I knew about the series and its notoriety of course, but not in any great detail, so on hearing the announcement I abandoned my initial plan to decamp to the bar and sat down to watch.

It was a fascinating programme, available for watching on youtube here, and to my mind the star of the show was Bill Bowes. By then in the autumn of his life he was clearly an intelligent and articulate man, and one who had a fine sense of humour, and the relish with which he told his tales from that far off summer cannot be understated.

It always struck me as at least a tad unfair that Bowes should be remembered primarily by reason of being a batsman sufficiently ordinary to end up one of the few to take more wickets than he scored runs, a fielder of whom very little was expected, and a bowler whose most memorable achievement was the single wicket he took in the most controversial Test series of all time.

But if you scratch away at the surface a rather different figure emerges. Bill Bowes has a formidable bowling record, at First Class level his average is better than that of the great Sydney Barnes, and if his Test record is sometimes described as disappointing 68 wickets at 22 in 15 Tests, including Bradman’s scalp as many as five times, does rather support the argument that selectorial caprice was the reason why Bowes missed as many Tests as he did.

In 1949 Bowes, who joined the press corps after retirement, published an autobiography, Express Deliveries, that is undoubtedly one of the best of that particular genre. In one sense that achievement whets the appetite for a full biography, although at the same time perhaps also raises the suspicion that perhaps there is little more to say. In truth however where the subject is, like Bowes, an innately modest man, as long as the biography is diligently researched there should be a good deal to add.

And the reality is that author Jeremy Lonsdale has access to a great deal of material. Throughout Bowes career cricket was covered extensively by the local press in Yorkshire, as were many of the non-cricketing events to which Bowes, always a popular speaker, was regularly invited. Lonsdale also had the opportunity to speak to some who in their youth were coached by Bowes, and he was also able to meet Bowes’ son Tony, a more than useful cricketer himself, albeit one who did not get further than Yorkshire’s second eleven.

The result is an immensely readable story, littered with anecdotes, many of which I had not heard before, and also some interesting insights into well known incidents. A good example is the episode at the Oval in the late summer of 1932 when, having not initially been selected for the 1932/33 party, Bowes upset Jack Hobbs by subjecting the veteran, batting at the time with Douglas Jardine, to what Hobbs considered a surfeit of short bowling. Lonsdale’s research has uncovered much on that particular episode that I was not previously aware of.

In many ways the most impressive single aspect of An Unusual Celebrity is that despite Bowes having departed this mortal coil as long ago as 1987 Lonsdale still manages to bring his character and personality to life. This is particularly well done in relation to Bowes’ wartime activities, and with reference to what he did outside the game, but in addition Lonsdale does a fine job of explaining what sort of a cricketer Bowes was, quoting one particularly memorable description of him as an indolent lovable Alp of a man who moved with the frolicing gaiety of a geological period.

Unlike some recent books it is also worth making the observation that An Unusual Celebrity has an excellent index, as opposed to a rudimentary list of names, all the important statistics and some interesting observations on those. There is also an excellent selection of well reproduced photographs including the well known ones of the Bradman dismissal and one of Bowes and his great friend Hedley Verity, in addition to many that I had not previously seen.

If I read another cricketing biography this year that is as good as An Unusual Celebrity I shall consider myself fortunate, and I am confident that come the handing out of the various cricket writing awards for this year that this one will be on all the short lists. It is highly recommended.