A few cricketing tales.
A hundred years ago the Yorkshire Gents Cricket Club was thriving, partly due to two members of my family. My father Alfred Octavius Elmhirst (The eighth son) and Jack Elmhirst, his cousin. Both were assistant solicitors in their uncle’s firm, G.Brown and Elmhirst of 6 Lendal, York. Uncle Charles was brought up in the 19th Century and his practice reflected that. It was only in 1920 when his two nephews managed to persuade their uncle to install a telephone. Not for business of course, but to enable them to contact players at short notice to make up a team. A typewriter followed soon after, but wax seals and parchment remained in use for years to come.
Although my father’s name was Alfred, he was always known to family and familiars as ‘Pom’. The name arose when saying his goodnight prayer as a very small boy. It should have come out as, ‘God bless Daddy, God bless Mummy and make me a good little boy’, but instead the final request was ‘and make me a good little Pom.’ This delighted his older brothers and the name stuck.
When Pom was at Winchester during WW1, he was a promising cricketer and marksman although these talents were not matched by any academic excellence. This caused a problem in the 1919 House cup competition. Pom’s housemaster A.E.Bloomfield wanted Pom as captain, but to be a captain one had to be in First Remove, the top form. Pom’s academic achievements were insufficient for him to be in that higher form so his housemaster made a deal with the maths teacher to promote Pom anyway thus enabling him to skipper the house team. Pom remembered entering the maths class and the teacher saying, ‘Ah, Elmhirst. We will be doing calculus this term, you won’t understand a word, so please bring a good book and sit at the back.’ No academic league tables in those days.
The ploy worked and to the delight of his housemaster, Pom led his house to victory in the cup with a final win over the rival house captained by Douglas Jardine, the future England captain. Pom’s verdict on Jardine, ‘an unpleasant boy’.
Jack did not have such heroic tales to tell of his school cricket, but he was desperate for a son to fulfil all his own cricketing ambitions when his only children were two daughters. When his wife was pregnant for the third time Jack was hopeful. On the day of the birth Jack received a telephone call at the office (no compassionate leave in those days) from the hospital. Pom over heard Jack repeat, ‘A daughter and both doing well. That’s good news.’ He then heard Jack put the phone down and exclaim, ‘another daughter – damn, damn, damn.’ At club level Jack was a wily leg spinner with the odd googly thrown in.
Another historic event for Pom was the annual blood match between Malton and Pickering. Pom’s sister Rachel was a close friend of the Pickering skipper to whom she suggested Pom to strengthen their batting. The offer was taken up and Pom scored a century on the day. The next year he was called on again, but unfortunately Malton had strengthened their hand too. Pom’s heart sank as he recognised Yorkshire and England Bowler Wilfred Rhodes being handed the ball. Needless to say, Pom did not make many runs on that occasion.
Until his untimely death, Jack looked after the YG’s with energy and care. He developed the colts to bring on the next generations of YG’s, but he also cared for the old timers whom I recognised as such when first playing with the YG’s because they would always attempt to stop the ball with their foot and then, after bending down to pick it up, throw it back to the keeper underarm. I don’t suppose such people get a chance these days.
Pom was an enthusiastic coach for me and brother Dick. One day he saw us playing on the lawn at home. He was disappointed by our rather feeble attempts to play a square cut so he came out to show us how it should be done. I offered up a ball outside the off stump which he clipped with some style through the closed sitting room window. What a lesson!
After one YG match, Pom and Jack and a couple of others had been celebrating in York. I think Jack was driving when, unfortunately, he collided with some cast iron railings at Clifton Green. An overlooking bedroom window went up and a gentleman with a large moustache demanded to know what was going on. He was recognised by both solicitors as York’s chief constable, but Jack called up, ‘Can you tell us when the walruses feed’. Legal skills were needed in the following weeks to avoid further trouble.
On failing his final Solicitors exam in his early days at his uncle’s office, Pom was offered a job as car salesman, I think by the Atcherley brothers who lent him a Bugatti Straight Eight for a couple of weeks as a temptation. Uncle Charles, however, was having none of that and put him back to his law books.
I apologise if my ageing memory has distorted any of these tales, but I have written them as I remember them.
Paul Elmhirst
22nd November 2025.