AN EMPLOYEE of John Wisden & Co., sports goods manufacturers, from the early 1930s, Harry Washington, confirms that `Brook Court backyard was where Wisden was. Just past the opening there was another little alley, and as you went through you looked up and you could see all the willow stacked up.

`It used to bring you out by the pub at the corner, by the Willoughbys. It was only a little firm, mind you. On Priest's Bridge there were little houses with back fences against the factory. It was all black and dirty and filthy, the willow – not nice and clean. I think there was a fire there one day when I was there that burned a couple of stacks of the willow.'

(Company minutes for Dec 14, 1929, in a rare reference to the works, note that the managing director was authorised to sign an agreement relating to supply of a fire hydrant.)

`I think some of the kids got in through a hole in the fence because the palings weren't all that high. It was only four or five feet high.'

What about factory security?

`No, we didn't have thieves around in those days. And who would want a block of wood? I think if you wanted a racquet they would give you one. There would be a few rejects.

`I was there about a year, and then they wanted me to go on piecework. They wanted so many pieces for a penny on the sanding machine. You had to go like the clappers to get a dozen. They said, we'll time you, so people said, go slow, go slow. I thought – no, not me. It was hard graft, with machines going flat out and blokes trying to earn a few bob. It was all dodgy. You might get the odd fingernail trimmed off, but no real accidents.

`I started at half-past-seven till five – and Saturday mornings. The factory shut midday Saturday. My mate went out on the van. He was all right. He used to get the odd dropsy (tips) when he delivered to the shops. I stayed a year and a half, I suppose. I had to give an hour's notice, and that was that. You were paid by the hour. There were no unions (though I don't know about the ballmakers having them).

`The yard was just mud. As you went in the main entrance, there was a little office – the foreman used to bring our money round. There was a window that side – on the right, and there'd be a bloke putting the cricket balls and tennis balls in boxes. We weren't interested in Wisden books – we were just interested in the job.'

There was clerks and secretaries there?

`Oh, yes – but I wasn't nosey, was I? There were people doing the orders. You didn't clock in – just sign the book and when you got in about twenty-to-eight there was a line across for if you were late. If you had half-a-day or a day off, you got your money stopped.

`You'd get say 12/6 at the end of the week and you'd go home and give your missus or your mum ten bob – you got half-a-crown for yourself. If you needed a new bike tyre, that was your lot. You got a normal week's holiday each year.

`I went to the butcher's in Sheen Lane when I left: then my gran got me a job with the gas company. I still think of Wisden's, and when I go by Fitzgerald Avenue I always think of it.'

John Blewitt, now 82, of Temple Road, Richmond, also worked at the factory for a few months as a lad in 1926. He also confirms the hidden nature of the works: `When I came to apply for the job, I couldn't find it, because it was so tucked away behind the houses. I was wandering around asking people where it was – and they didn't know either.'

Mr Blewitt's most vivid memory is his regular duty, every Thursday, of taking a handcart loaded with boxes of tennis balls not to the main Mortlake Post Office, but the sub-post office behind The Willoughbys.

`They seemed to be mostly for India – loads and loads of them,' he recalls.

Fitzgerald Works business must have been good for the sub-post office: Mr Blewitt says a new stack of shelves to take the extra despatches were built by the counter.

The works in the early days may have been smaller than in Harry Washington's time, when business built up: John Blewitt remembers only one factory building, on the left, and he saw no women working there in 1926.

`I did buy a bat there once, but it wasn't much good,' he says ruefully.

He enjoyed his time there as his workmates were friendly, but `the money wasn't all that good, only 18 shillings or a pound. I'd been earning better money before I was 16 when I was a milk roundsman.' There appeared to be little opportunity for advancement, and young Blewitt soon returned to liquid business, with Putney Brewery.

Bat-making at Wisden's Mortlake works, an activity suspended by the Luftwaffe

James Tipper, now living in Canberra, Australia, has indistinct memories of the Fitzgerald Works, although he was with John Wisden for 60 years, along with his father, Harold. He visited Mortlake only a couple of times, being based at the Penshurst works with the Duke & Son subsidiary.

`While we were a valuable product producing offshoot for Wisden, there was always intense rivalry, going back generations,' he recalls. `In fact Duke's had hauled Wisdens up before the Lord Chief Justice in 1898 (a row over production of cricket balls), so you see, I had willynilly to become part of the scenario.'

Mr Tipper provides the significant information that Wisden at Mortlake closed down after going into receivership just before the Second World War, the Taylor-Rolph bowls section continuing on its own. This explains the entry in Kelly's Directory of Barnes, Mortlake and Sheen for 1939, recording, between Nos 14 and 16 Fitzgerald Avenue, `The Taylor-Rolph Co. Ltd, bowls manufacturers' (earlier issues listed both companies: Taylor-Rolph made its first appearance in the 1924 Kelly's, not having been listed in 1923).

`They did not survive too long, the premises being destroyed by a doodlebug in 1944. The only item recovered was a large circular saw, and all records were lost.'

Mr Tipper says Wisden sales and accounts departments moved to Penshurst in 1938, operating there until 1970: Gray's of Cambridge took over that year. He confirms that cricket bats and tennis recquets were produced at Mortlake, as well as lawn bowls, and believes other lines were bought in and sold under their own brands.

He outlined the management structure of John Wisden from 1923 to 1935, commenting that he knew little of the works staff at Mortlake. The chairman was A. E. Tilley of the chartered accountants Singleton, Fabian and Co. of Staple Inn; his son-in-law, G. D. Gooch, was managing director, and Gooch's son D. Gooch works director. (The chairman must have found it embarrassing to get rid of his own son-in-law in the crisis of 1937.)

Sales director was C. Robinson, and sales managers S. Hutt and L. Sayers: F. C. Smith was accountant-secretary, and R. J. Clough accountant.

The Great Newport Street showrooms were managed by Archie Smith and his son Wilfred.

Mr Tipper has a brochure with a photograph of four men in a workroom, with bats stacked beside a bench and the caption: `Shaping the blade of a centurymaker at Wisden's factory at Mortlake'.

The sales director he quotes – C. Robinson – wrote to The Cricketer on May 30, 1936, signing as sales manager, to answer a query about the `Flicker' series of cricket instruction booklets, based on cine films. Produced by Flicker Productions Ltd in 1930, these showed Australian cricketers demonstrating technique. Don Bradman showed the on-and offdrive, the square and late cut, and the leg glance and pull: spin bowler Clarrie Grimmett demonstrated the legbreak, the googly, and the topspinner. (Six years later

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