SPECTATOR SPORT
Bigger and better
Frank Keating
IT IS ALMOST two years since the death, at 74, of one of cricket's grandest knights, and in Len Hutton Remembered (Witherby, £16.99) his television biographer and the overseer of his occasional columns for the Observer, Donald Trelford, has scissor-and- pasted a timely and necessary memoir from a string of expert interviews by Michael and Simon Davie.
For those of a certain generation, it is compelling, unputdownable stuff. Reminis- cences from those Sir Len played with and against emphasise once more what we always knew — that the Yorkshireman couldn't half bat and that, to be sure, he dedicated himself to batting almost to the point of debilitating neurosis.
What the book also reveals is that Eng- land's greatest opening batsman was far less penny-pinching about giving up his wicket than he was about handing round his cigarettes.
Sir Len, of course, fretted at the crease and fumed in the pay at a time when sports- men were encouraged to smoke — 'for your health's sake' — even more than any GWR castle-class locomotive at full belch on the Swindon-Taunton stretch. (These matters have changed drastically of late; political and moral correctness has us even trying to change historical truth: one of the late John Arlott's last pieces in the Guardian a couple of years ago had him
celebrating his boyhood hero — and Sir Leonard's first-wicket predecessor — Jack Hobbs as 'an upright, clean-living man who neither drank alcohol nor smoked'. Either by accident or subeditorial mischief, the article was accompanied by a large photo- graph of Sir Jack, 'relaxing in the pavilion at the Oval after another century', with a foaming pint glass in his hand and swirls of smoke emanating from the cigarette clenched between his lips.) When he was captain of England, three of Hutton's finest bowlers were his fellow Yorkshireman, Fred Trueman, and the two Lancastrians, Brian Statham and Roy Tat- tersall. Forty years on, they seem to recall far more vividly their captain's smoking habits than the frequency — or piquancy of his bowling changes.
Remembers Statham: 'Leonard was the only man I ever knew who seemed to bring out a cigarette already lit. Most peculiar. He'd buy a drink but wouldn't give you a
cigarette. Very odd ... He would gladly accept cigarettes round the table and then bring out his cigarette case and light one himself but not offer them around, even though he hadn't paid for them.' (Hutton at the time was advertising 'Black Cat' cork- tipped cigs and, though he was given pack- ets free by the bucketful, he preferred classier brands.) Tattersall: 'I used to smoke either Senior Service or Players. Len would come along before a game and say, "What are• you smoking?" and so on. He'd have his free issue. "Try one of these, let's have a change," he'd say. There was no doubt which he preferred. Because he had his free ones, he wanted to swap with you. It was just the way he used to do it: "Try one of mine" like, "and I'll have one of yours".'
Trueman: 'In the West Indies in 1953, I arranged with Players to let the lads have some free cigarettes. They sent 200 to each man and Len was to share them out. Those boys who didn't smoke said their room- mate could have theirs.
`I smoked a pipe and was sharing with Tony Lock, so I said he could have my 200. Len dished them out just to the smokers, and as far as I know he kept all the rest for himself.'
England might not have had a bigger smoker. Nor have they yet had a better batsman.
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