Stories Behind Books - An Unusual Celebrity: The Many Cricketing Lives of Bill Bowes by Jeremy Lonsdale

by Mayukh Ghosh

There are some who, by design or by accident, remain associated with what they love, till death intervenes. Bill Bowes and cricket is such a story. He played for Yorkshire and England. Then, after retirement, he served the game in various capacities. Journalist, coach, author, broadcaster, public speaker and more.
He wrote two books. One an autobiography (not ghosted) called Express Deliveries and, twelve years later, a tour book about the 1961 Ashes series.
Even though he wrote plenty about the game, there hasn’t been enough written about him and his contributions to the game.
At long last, in 2024, Jeremy Lonsdale has filled that gap. Not that this was a project he thought of doing for years and so on, but more of a project that happened.

“The idea for the book came when I was thinking about how I could write about Yorkshire cricket in the 1930s without duplicating a lot of existing work. I have written four books (all published by ACS Publications) on different periods of  Yorkshire cricket –  the very early days before the arrival of the All England Eleven in 1846; on the Victorian period and how the game developed prior to county club reorganisation in the early 1890s, which was followed by decades of success; on how the game survived the First World War; and on the 1920s, the decade when Yorkshire won four championships in successive years. I wanted to continue by looking at the 1930s, but I was conscious that there have been biographies of Hutton, Sutcliffe, Leyland, Sellers and Macaulay, as well as other books on the period. I then realised that although Bowes had written an autobiography – Express Deliveries – which is still well regarded, no-one had researched a biography. I am more surprised than ever now that this is the case, but I thought I should fill that gap.
”I was also interested in the subject of celebrity in cricket. We have got used to the idea now that most of the players can walk down the street and not be noticed, but that certainly wasn’t the case in the 1930s. I feel that county cricketers were perhaps at their most high profile during this decade. As I did my research, I realised how popular Bowes had been but also how his celebrity was not straightforward – hence the book’s title. He didn’t look like the average fast bowler, he wore glasses which is unusual for a top-class sportsman, and his modesty and rather studious demeanour were also not exactly typical either. This was all part of his appeal and why he generated enormous affection among cricket followers of all ages. His contractual arrangements were also rather unusual for such a famous player. He had a nine-year contract with MCC which meant that even though he was a Test bowler and an essential part of the championship-winning Yorkshire side, he still had to start the season bowling in the nets at Lord’s at MCC members and public schoolboys, and this went on until 1938, by which time he had been one of the top bowlers in England for years.
”I also wanted to write about someone who was more than just a cricketer. Years ago, I wrote a biography of RM Poore, the Hampshire and South African cricketer, who had one great season in English cricket in 1899, but what I found interesting about him was how cricket was fitted around many other things including a demanding military career, and success at a range of other sports. In Bowes’s case, as well as being a cricketer, he was also a respected journalist for 25 years, did some broadcasting (including being on Test Match Special on the first day of transmission), was a valued coach (Close and Trueman were both grateful for his guidance), spent three years in prisoner-of-war camps during the war, and had an interest in all sorts of activities including magic, film-making, freemasonry, wine and nature. He also clearly enjoyed travel and seemed very open to all sorts of experiences. In 1939, for example, when Arthur Wood had a benefit and there was a football match between the Yorkshire cricketers and a Bradford side to raise money for the beneficiary, Bowes was made referee. He decided to do it properly and took an exam which meant he was a qualified referee by the time of the match.”

There was more Bowes had which appealed to Lonsdale.
“What I found interesting was how he seemed to have a very mature and positive outlook on life early on. He knew that being an opening bowler meant he was at high risk of injury, which could end his career in a moment, so he was very focused from the start of his cricketing career about his future. He pressed Yorkshire about his benefit after only a couple of years in the side, he took up sports writing when he was about 28, and he invested in several businesses while he in his 20s. He always seemed to be thinking ahead.

“Bowes’s career also sheds light on different aspects of how popular the game was in the middle of the 20th century in England. From the time of the Bodyline series onwards he was an in-demand speaker at local cricket events and was happy to talk to large audiences about cricket, but also about other things including religion and politics. In the 1950s, he made a series of films when out in Australia reporting on three MCC tours, and he would show them in town halls and clubs over the following winters. He could get audiences of 250 or more people in the days before television really took off.
“I also enjoyed finding out and writing about Bowes the writer. He started doing a bit of football and cricket writing in the 1930s, flew to Australia in 1946/47 to report on the MCC tour, and then took up journalism full time after he retired from cricket in 1947. He produced a huge amount of material for newspapers, magazines, annuals and other publications for the following 25 years. And he wrote on many different topics – sports such as rugby and football in the winters at home but also other things when out in Australia – a visit to the Great Barrier Reef, for example, or the conditions of English people who had emigrated to Australia after the war. It was clear his employers were trying to get the most out of him while he was abroad, but he always seemed to have something to say.
”Having previously written about cricket in the 19th century where there often aren’t many images, I also enjoyed writing about someone who was captured on film. There are various clips on YouTube of him bowling, including of course, the famous Bradman first-ball dismissal, but I also found that there is a film about Yorkshire’s trip to Jamaica in 1936 which includes some great footage of Bowes, Verity, Sutcliffe, Wood and others playing deck games on the ship going over. This film now can be seen on the Yorkshire Film Archive website at https://www.yfanefa.com/record/11859.  And I also tracked down two half-hour interview programmes he did in 1980, one with Harold Larwood and another with Jim Kilburn, the Yorkshire cricket writer, who was his big friend and colleague. It was great to see these people so clearly.”

As probably evident by now, it was not only Bowes’ cricket that drew Lonsdale towards telling his story. He was a good cricketer no doubt but the other aspects of his cricketing life made him an imposing figure in the game’s history.
In Lonsdale’s words: “There is no doubt he was a great county bowler and Yorkshire would not have won the championships they did in the 1930s without him taking so many important wickets. He was also a good Test bowler, who probably didn’t get as many chances as he might have, partly because of injury or injury concerns, but also because he didn’t always perform at his best at this level. More generally though, I think he is what you might call a great ‘cricket personality’, by which I mean he devoted his life to the game at all levels for more than 60 years, in so many different ways and he was committed to the game being played in an entertaining and vigorous way. So definitely someone with a story well worth telling.”

 Even though it has been a satisfying experience for Lonsdale, there’s never a case when things are absolutely perfect. The ‘if onlys’ and what ‘could have beens’ are integral part of any creative work. No exception here too.
“I think it would have been good to have written the book some years ago, when I would have been able to talk to more players who appeared with or were coached by Bill Bowes. In terms of content, it would have been good to have found more recorded material so that I could have heard Bowes discussing the game more, to go alongside the enormous amount of written material that he produced. The two interviews in the ITV archives from 1980, one with Bowes and Jim Kilburn, and another with Bowes and Harold Larwood are fascinating to watch and it would be good if they could be more readily available.”

 An Unusual Celebrity: The Many Cricketing Lives of Bill Bowes has been published by Pitch Publishing and is available from all the usual physical and online outlets.