World’s oldest test cricketer who liked to drive Minis as fast as she bowled
‘‘I’d like to know when I am going to be old. Do you think it will be when I am 105?’’
Eileen Ash, like Geoffrey Boycott, believed in taking her cricket bat to bed with her. She would have placed stumps under her pillow, too, if her parents had allowed her to do so. Only driving her favourite Minis, which she continued to do well after reaching her personal century, consumed her to the same extent all her life. Ash, who has died aged 110, became the world’s oldest test cricketer, one still prepared to take a stance over the way in which the game was run.
The only male test cricketer to have reached 100 years of age is Norman Gordon, a South African, who died aged 103. Ash played cricket from the age of 5 in north
London in 1916, having been given a bat by her uncle, and turned out for her father’s club when she was older. She was soon representing a South of England XI and was swiftly disabused of the notion that she was taking part in ladies’ cricket. Marjorie Pollard, founding member of the Women’s Cricket Association, told her the game was for women, not ladies. ‘‘I did not think women played cricket,’’ was her response.
She played, before World War II, in an era of long white stockings and white flannel skirts. There was little in the way of protective clothing and certainly no expenses. In later years she had no truck with the notion that women’s cricket was a superior game to how it had been played in her day.
‘‘I had an argument with Charlotte Edwards, the England captain, over the coloured pyjama clothes they played in and I did not like modern-day players criticising the umpires or the review system to determine dismissals. Everything is so technical.
‘‘And what is the matter with cricket balls now? They did not become soft and awful when I played. I don’t think the standard of top cricketers has improved that much,’’ Ash said in an interview for the library at Lord’s. ‘‘I probably bowled at 60 or 70mph and could bowl 16-18 overs in a spell. We were pretty fit. I was quite fast but I could slip in a slower ball.’’
Nor did Ash like the attitude of Marylebone Cricket Club to the women’s game (before women were admitted as members). ‘‘It kept preventing us from playing at Lord’s, so we went to the Oval instead.’’ She was, however, made an honorary member of MCC when she reached 100 – and the club’s secretary allowed her to park in the driveway of his own house behind the pavilion.
Eileen Whelan was born in Highbury, north London, and was educated at a Roman Catholic convent where, she said, she was almost expelled when she was caught playing cricket. ‘‘The Mother Superior is the only person who’s ever scared me,’’ she confessed. ‘‘She was so frightfully strict.’’
Playing cricket was not deemed suitable for girls, so for as long as she was at school, she had to make do with hockey. She began playing cricket for a women’s team when she joined the Civil Service at the age of 18. She went on to play for Middlesex and made her debut for England against Australia at Northampton in 1937.
Her seven test matches, in which she took 10 wickets and scored 38 runs, were spread over 12 years – ‘‘I lost several years of my career because of the war,’’ she mused – although she did tour Australia, making a century and taking five wickets against Victoria in 1949. Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest of all cricketers, gave her a signed bat which she kept by her bed ‘‘in case of burglars’’.
When the England women’s team sailed for Australia that winter, the crew did not patronise them. They put up practice nets on deck. The required clothing list included ball gowns and a cocktail dress as well as cricket gear.
After her cricket career ended Ash took up golf, playing until she was 98. She spent 11 years working for MI6 including during World War II, a period of her life which she was more reluctant to discuss than her driving. She never passed a test, as she was born 23 years before this was introduced, but was filmed in a documentary entitled 100-Year-Old Drivers Ride Again, which explored why some of Britain’s oldest drivers were still keen to get behind the wheel. She was undeterred by having her wing mirror bashed in when she was 105.
‘‘I have owned four Minis. I like a small car and it’s quite speedy, the acceleration is good. It does stand out from the crowd. People often say to me, ‘you’re the lady who drives a yellow Mini’. They say it is a beautiful little car, and that makes me happy for the rest of the day. If I couldn’t drive, I would have a motorbike – and that would not be very safe.’’
She married Wilfrid Ash, whom she met when growing up and who taught woodwork and became deputy headmaster at one of the first comprehensive schools, in south London. He died in 2004. They had one son, Christopher, who became a barrister and then a judge.
She was sustained by her Christian faith and regular yoga (Heather Knight, the current England captain who once did a yoga session with her, said that she had ‘‘met teenagers with less energy’’) and celebrated her birthdays in style, including a ride in a Tiger Moth on her 106th.
She also enjoyed wine into extreme old age and her glass was more than half full in every sense. ‘‘I’d like to know when I am going to be old. Do you think it will be when I am 105? I have to go for my second century.’’