A lord’s Test match special
QUESTION Who was the first foreign-born player in the England cricket team?
The first two england Test matches took place in 1877 in Melbourne, Australia. The england team were all english-born.
But in the third Test two years later, also at Melbourne, england was captained by the 4th Lord harris, who was born in St Anns, Trinidad, in 1851.
he was a big figure in cricket, captaining england in four Tests and spending a lifetime as a player and administrator for england and Kent.
During the third Test, Lord harris was short of a wicket-keeper and drafted in Dubliner Leland hone — the first england Test player not to play county cricket.
Lord harris’s three other Tests were notable. At the Oval in 1880, the england team that strolled to a five-wicket victory included the three Grace brothers in the only Test they played together.
The 1884 Test was the first to be played at Lord’s in North London.
Lord harris’s final Test in 1884 at the Oval was a draw, in which the Australian captain Billy Murdoch scored the first Test double century.
Seven years later in South Africa, Murdoch made his england debut.
Clive Paish, Chigwell, Essex.
QUESTION What was the plot of the first episode of The Archers?
The original idea for The Archers came from Lincolnshire farmer henry Burtt. At a meeting between the BBC and farming representatives, he announced: ‘What we need is a farming Dick Barton.’
Dick Barton was an adventure serial about a secret agent, broadcast from 1946 until 1951. Until 1962, almost all the 3,000 Archers episodes were penned by the Dick Barton writers Geoffrey Webb and edward J. Mason.
An introductory programme to The Archers was produced by Godfrey Baseley and transmitted in December 1950.
It featured Baseley visiting Ambridge in a ‘mobile recording vehicle’ and talking to the characters as if they were real.
he had a cup of tea at Brookfield Farm and commented on the possibility of a romance between Phil and Grace. The original cast included Dan (harry Oakes); Doris (Gwen Berryman); Philip (Norman Painting); Christine (Pamela Mant); Jack (Denis Folwell); Peggy (June Spencer, who is still in the show); and Grace Fairbrother (Monica Grey).
There is no recording of the original programme, but the transcript still exists.
It began: ‘The Archers are country folk — farmers. Dan Archer, the head of the family, his wife Doris, younger son Philip and daughter Christine, live at Brookfield Farm. The other son, Jack, and his wife Peggy live on the outskirts of Ambridge village and run a small market garden.
‘We join them at a moment when tribulations are forgotten, when families unite to . . . see the New Year in.’
The opening lines were — Dan: ‘And a happy new year to you all.’ Doris: ‘A very happy new year, Dan.’ Dan: ‘Thanks, mother. If it’s as good as the last ’un, I’ll be satisfied.’
We are then introduced to the characters. Dan and Doris’s sound management of Brookfield Farm has earned them modest prosperity. Their youngest child, Christine, 20, has a job at Borchester Dairies. Jack is struggling with his smallholding. The gentle start proved popular — by the end of the year, The Archers had an audience of two million.
Andrea Taylor, Pangbourne, Berks.
QUESTION Why do the Guards wear their busby with the strap in front of their chin instead of under it?
The Guards wear a bearskin, not a busby, which is a smaller felt head-dress worn by the Royal horse Artillery and hussar regiments in full dress.
Traditionally, both are affixed above the chin by a protective strap comprised of linked brass rings. The metal chain was placed to deflect or absorb an upward sabre strike directed to the face.
The busby is derived from the hungarian shako. Originally, it had a bag of coloured cloth hanging from over the right shoulder to catch sabre cuts.
The reason why the hats were so tall (particularly the bearskin), going all the way down to the brow, was to disguise the exact position of the head, making it more difficult for enemy cavalry to strike the right area. Paul Davies, Hereford.
QUESTION Why do the names of so many shapes, such as decagon, hexagon and pentagon, end with ‘. . . gon’?
The previous answer, which stated that the term polygon is derived from the Greek words polus (many) and gonia (corners or angles), reminded me of a school maths lesson.
The master asked if anyone could define a circle, hoping for an answer along the lines of ‘the locus of points equidistant from a fixed point’. In other words, like a pair of compasses.
I ventured: ‘It’s a polygon with an infinite number of sides, Sir.’
The teacher gave it some thought, said it wasn’t the definition he had been looking for, ‘but I do believe you’re right’.
Now I realise my definition is a matter of debate and, thanks to your previous answer, should rightly be called an apeirogon — a polygon with an infinite number of sides.
Phil Alexander, Farnborough, Hants.
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