The oldest Test player cruises on past her century
Celebrity has come late to Eileen Ash but, at 106, she is relishing the spotlight, writes
‘I saw Eileen at Lord’s this summer, flirting with John Major and drinking champagne’
An airfield in Norfolk hosted an unusual birthday celebration this week. To commemorate the occasion, Tiger Moth pilot Henry Labouchere took a mystery guest – a retired England cricketer – for a flight in one of these vintage aircraft, with Sky’s cameras in attendance.
Sports lovers of a certain age might already be thinking of David Gower and John Morris, the two pranksters who hired their own Tiger Moth to buzz over the Carrara Oval on the 1990-91 Ashes tour, only to find themselves nearly sent home for their perceived impertinence.
But no, we are talking about a player of a very different generation. Someone who was approaching their own half-century by the time Gower was born. Eileen Ash turned 106 on Monday, and is one of the most active centenarians in Britain.
Less than two months ago, she was in the papers
for passing her driving test – an event broadcast on the ITV reality show 100-Year-old Driving
School. So, for Ash, the switch from her beloved Mini – which she drives to yoga classes every day – to a 1941 biplane was just a small step back through the annals of British engineering.
“I loved it,” Ash said. “Better than bumpy roads in your car.” Asked whether she felt she needed a sit-down after all the adrenalin, Ash replied: “No, I’d rather have a drink.” Her capacity for red wine could be the key to her longevity.
Ash achieved minicelebrity on the back of her TV appearances, yet many reports did not mention that she played seven Tests for England between 1937 and 1948, claiming 10 wickets at 23 apiece with her medium pace.
In a life as rich and long as hers, things that would define most of us are apt to pass without comment. Such as winning an Ashes Test at Blackpool’s Stanley Park, 80 years ago. Or spending the Second World War working for MI6 – a period on which she maintains a patriotic silence in any case.
On either side, she followed a less clandestine career as a regular civil servant, ploughing much of her salary back into her main hobby. Women’s cricket has turned professional only in the past couple of years, so Ash (nee Whelan) and her teammates had to be dab hands at fundraising.
“We played a charity match during the war,” Ash explained. “The Women’s Cricket Association v the British Legion. I raised a team, then I was carrying my bag across Liverpool Street Station and this lady came up to me and said, ‘You’re disgraceful going off to play a cricket match when there’s a war on’. I was most upset.”
As Ash concluded: “The war was a terrible waste of one’s life. I’ve been lucky, though, because I’ve had extra years over 100.” In fact, she has already lived longer than any other Test cricketer, beating South Africa’s Norman Gordon by three years.
The biplane stunt was dreamed up by commentator Isabelle Duncan. “I saw Eileen at Lord’s this summer,” Duncan recalls. “She was drinking champagne in the President’s Box and flirting with John Major. When she spoke about the importance of having excitement in your life, I thought about the Tiger Moth.” On the big day, Ash arrived in an open-top sports car driven by her grandson Ben. “I enjoyed my 100th birthday,” she smiled. “But this one was better.”