IN THE SALEROOMS

Among the trifles in the 1000 or so cricket lots, a shirt signed by John Major made £113 and a pair of signed Brylcreem postcards featuring Denis Compton and Godfrey Evans were almost given away at £25. Prized lots in clothing included Test caps from Joel Garner (£675), Colin Cowdrey (£427) and Gary Kirsten (£304), and signed Edwardian postcards went for over £100 each. Even rarer, the signatures of the 1912 South African touring team pushed bidding up to a gross £292.

Jack Hobbs: never on Sunday

Letters, as always, provided fascinating fare. Three from the pen of Plum Warner were never intended for public scrutiny: `I wish you would recommend taking cricket articles from me,' he wrote to an editor in 1902, `as I can write them well, I think.' Next to CB Fry, he went on in the next letter, `I know as much about the game as anyone.' Then the head drops: `Sorry you can't manage an article from me.' The first letter made £118, but the other two were bought in. Though not really uncommon, WG Grace letters will always attract strong bidding. A simple example from 1910 went for £168. A more interesting one from Jack Hobbs, in which he states `You ought to remember that I never play on Sundays', made £101. Elsewhere in this marathon sale, a scorecard from the historic 1950 England- West Indies Test at Lord's, signed by both teams, sold for £157. And a similar item from the Headingley Test of 1947 between England and South Africa might have made more than £123 had Denis Compton not forgotten to score a century: in his golden summer he reached three figures in all the other four Tests.

Some well-loved books, old and not so old, were hammered at Dominic Winter's Swindon sale in April, the pick perhaps being the 1865 publication on Canterbury Week, with 16 mounted original photographs, which fetched £245.

The next major sale scheduled was Phillips' in London on May 22, in which the 300-odd lots include a bat signed by 82 top players for presentation by WG in 1907 and a copy of Boxall's 1804 instructional book.

ON THE BOOKSHELVES

A Death at the Cricket: A Sherlock Holmes Adventureby Eddie Maguire: from him at 63 Wellington Road, Bridgwater, Somerset TA6 5EZ; 30pp; £3 inc p&p. An imaginative tale, blending the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and cricket in 1896, it is set at Sheffield Park, in those days a true-life cricket venue, owned by the earl who gave Australian cricket its domestic trophy. Lord Sheffield features, as do contemporary cricketers Abel, Bonnor and Shaw, together with the master sleuth. Perhaps best read under a tree next summer at the now-overgrown Sheffield Park, where the delightful Bluebell Railway puffs.

Can We Stay Up and Watch the Bombs?by James Pilditch: Verulam; from Michael Hyde, 44 High Street, Balsham, Cambridge CB1 6EP; 288pp; £11.50 post free to WCM readers; proceeds to War Widows' Association. The sadness of this enthusiastic effusion is that the author did not live to see it make print. From a village boyhood in wartime England, Pilditch finds his way in the world, entering the Army, spending years in the US and Canada, absorbing the events and the sounds and the moods of his time, to which sensitive contemporaries will feel twitches of response. And every once in a while there is mention of cricket, for the writer was in love with the game. From Compton to Gooch, it was a strand of his life. Others may identify and enjoy.

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