The perils of batting on a soggy wicket

ToM’S uTLEy’S amusing piece ‘Why every pupil needs oddball teachers’ (Mail) must have stirred a few wonderful schoolboy memories. In the early Fifties, I was a pupil at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Carmarthen, West Wales, where the senior Latin master was Mr E.V. Williams. he was also the organist and choir master at Laugharne parish church and it was thought Dylan Thomas based his under Milk Wood character ‘organ Morgan’ on E.V. E.V. was a keen cricket fan and every summer arranged a match between his choir boys and the fifth form Latin class. I had very little interest in Latin but was a big cricket fan, played for the school team and was told I would captain the form team for this annual fixture and be responsible for the kit. E.V. paid our bus fare to Laugharne, and on arrival we were ushered into a side bar at the Browns hotel — Dylan Thomas’s favourite watering hole — and treated to a fish-and-chips lunch, with E.V. again picking up the tab. We were told to board the next bus to Pendine, where I knew the Army played on a well-manicured track. But the bus flew past the ground and we headed into the seaside village. ‘Follow me,’ declared E.V. But my passion for the game suddenly hit rock bottom as he headed down the slipway onto the beach. Pendine Sands had long been a world-famous venue for speed record attempts, and although the outfield was rock hard, this was no cricket pitch. ‘Choir will bat first,’ decided E.V. as he took up the umpire’s position, having already told us the choir had an undefeated record in this fixture. They batted their allocated overs and, after a drinks break, we prepared for the run chase. Suddenly, a voice on the boundary called out: ‘Tide coming in, sir!’ The ‘wicket’ was moved further up the beach, but there was no escaping the waters of the Bristol Channel as they raced remorselessly across the sands. Match abandoned! oddball? I don’t think so, but certainly someone who knew his tides.

David Lewis, Porthcawl, South glamorgan.