Tony Lock E-Book

Alan Hill

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 361

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The rollercoaster career of Tony Lock, extending over twenty-five years, is the saga of a resilient cricketer who triumphed over adversity. He was an inspirational figure in Surrey's seven consecutive championship wins in the 1950s when he forged a feared spin partnership with Jim Laker for both club and country. Controversy stalked Lock as a bowler during his destructive rule with Surrey and England but the return to the orthodox style of his youth brought renewed acclaim. He rejoiced in another role as captain in reviving the fortunes of Leicestershire and Western Australia, where he led the state to victory in the Sheffield Shield. Tony Lock was, for a legion of admirers, an incorrigible showman, with boundless enthusiasm for the game. It was said of him, for instance, that when he appealed at the Oval, someone else was given out at Lord's. Tony Lock: Aggressive Master of Spin is an engrossing study that reveals the paradox of a volatile and vulnerable man, but an astonishingly durable cricketer; his memory will endure.

Leseprobe

TONY LOCK

Also by Alan Hill

The Family Fortune – A Saga of Sussex Cricket

A Chain of Spin Wizards

Hedley Verity – Portrait of a Cricketer

Johnny Wardle – Cricket Conjuror

Les Ames

Herbert Sutcliffe – Cricket Maestro

Bill Edrich

Peter May

Jim Laker

The Bedsers – Twinning Triumphs

Brian Close – Cricket’s Lionheart

Daring Young Men – The Story of England’s

Victorious Tour of Australia and New Zealand 1954/55

To Betty for sharing the pleasures of our travels across the world and the hospitality of so many kind friends down under.

First published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Alan Hill, 2008, 2022

The right of Alan Hill to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 18039 91344

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Foreword by Dennis Lillee MBE

Introduction

ONE From School to County

TWO Armed for Aggression

THREE Bowlers on a Bender

FOUR The Vintage Years

FIVE The Two of Them

SIX The Old Trafford Mystery

SEVEN Magician in the Field

EIGHT The Pride of the Countryman

NINE Revelation on Film

TEN The Astounding Veteran

ELEVEN The Pom in His Australian Pomp

TWELVE The Legacy of an English Lord

THIRTEEN The Shield Goes West

FOURTEEN Shadows Across His Name

Epilogue: Memories of the Born Winner

Statistical Appendix

Compiled by Paul E. Dyson

Bibliography

Foreword

by Dennis Lillee mbe

Alan Hill could not have thought of a more vibrant subject to write on than G.A.R. ‘Lockie’, or ‘Bo’ as his West Australian teammates called him, among other things at times. He was a real mixture of the controversial and the inspirational; his cricket career and life were studded with a cocktail of all of that.

A much-decorated career for England and Surrey was highlighted by being an integral member of the England Ashes-winning side of 1953 that heralded a relatively brief but golden era of Test success for England, as well as being a vital member of the all-powerful Surrey teams of the 1950s. In both of those teams, of course, Lockie was paired with perhaps his more famous spinning partner, Jim Laker.

With such a combative, confronting personality combined with the legacy of a doubtful bowling action that brought him under the close scrutiny of the game’s authorities – ultimately leading to a significant change of action to remain an effective force in cricket – meant that controversy and Lock were never far apart. I understand that administrators and Lockie were not necessarily always on the friendliest of terms, a scenario that I can personally relate to!

Lockie, however, was never afraid of a challenge – adapting as he did to that necessary change – and was to later write the Australian chapter of his cricket career in conditions that on face value were very foreign to his left-arm finger-spin craft and former lifestyle.

A shock omission from an MCC team selected to tour Australia in 1962, a disappointed and disillusioned Tony Lock was in just the right frame of mind to give a positive answer to a telephone call from Les Truman, the WACA secretary of the time, to play for Western Australia in the 1962/63 Australian summer. An initial one-year stint was to extend to eight seasons and led to uplifting all of his family to make their lives in Western Australia – a place where Lockie called home until his death in March 1995.

For those eight Australian summers, Lockie wore the black and gold with great distinction and for much of that time as its captain. He continued the great work of his predecessor, the late Barry Shepherd, and handed a blueprint of success to those leaders that followed in John Inverarity, Rod Marsh, Kim Hughes, Graeme Wood, Geoff Marsh and Tom Moody, duly helping to convert the once Cinderella State in Sheffield Shield cricket into the Australian domestic-cricket powerhouse for three decades between 1967 and 1997.

Lockie performed remarkably under Australian conditions, with his clever variations and native cunning that ‘conned’ even the best of the Australian players of the time who he could count among his 326 first-class wickets for Western Australia. He was the ultimate professional and an uncompromising but respected leader who led from the front by performance, and did not accept weaklings or those that were not fully committed to the team cause.

Yet, just as equally, in his own gruff manner, he was awfully supportive and instructive to any young players who he considered had the talent and the attitude to realise their true potential in the game. Lockie had a great knack of getting the best out of the players who played with and under him; it was my good fortune to play under Lockie in my introduction to first-class cricket. Perhaps some part of my own personality and aggression may have gelled with him as he was always very supportive towards me.

I salute Lockie for some happy personal memories and for the positive influence that he had on my own early career. He left a lasting legacy for me in having given me the less-than affectionate nickname of ‘FOT’, during one hot summer’s day in the field, a handle that still sticks with me today among my contemporary teammates and opponents.

Love him or otherwise, Tony Lock was one of the great cricket personalities of his era.

Introduction

The remarkable life of an enduring cricketer placed him in the halls of fame in two hemispheres. Tony Lock, in the words of his Surrey junior, Micky Stewart, was the most inspirational of all the players he had encountered in his own long association with the game. Yet, at the same time, he regrets that Surrey did not see the best of his former colleague in terms of bowling purity. The years of controversy in which Lock destructively ruled at Kennington Oval were disavowed in a return to the orthodox bowling of his youth in Western Australia. His reinvention as a bowler occurred after he had viewed himself on film in a private showing during the tour of New Zealand in 1959. ‘If I’d known I was throwing I wouldn’t have bowled like that,’ was a belated exclamation of remorse.

Pat Pocock, as a younger county player, says: ‘The extraordinary thing about Tony is that when he “threw” he was an Underwood type of bowler – by far the best bad-wicket bowler in the world. He then became the best hard-wicket bowler in the manner of Bishan Bedi.’

The zest and fervour which Lock projected as a cricketer was given full rein when he assumed the role of captain, first at Leicester after leaving Surrey, and then in Perth. The rekindling of his talents in Australia and the adjustment to the slower style brought him a late harvest of wickets. He led Western Australia to a Sheffield Shield triumph over Victoria in the torrid heat at Melbourne in February 1968. Dennis Lillee, who has kindly provided the foreword to my book, was one of his young disciples in Perth. ‘Lockie taught me the need for a hold-no-quarter approach to playing the game. I had a lot of that in my make-up but to see my captain with the same attributes endorsing this was very important to a young player like myself.’

The intensity of Lock’s cricket always signalled him as a man to watch. As one Oval partisan remembered, it was all ‘edge-of-the-seat stuff,’ Lock possessed a charisma which would have charmed and enthralled another generation just as much as it did his devotees at Kennington Oval and in Western Australia.

Jackie Birkenshaw played under Lock and his successor, Raymond Illingworth, at Leicester. He remembers that each of them had tremendous self-belief. ‘Lockie was the showman and led by example. He never allowed a game to drift and tried to make things happen. We watched him tumbling and diving around on the field. You could not help but be infected by his enthusiasm.’

The headlines in Surrey’s seven championship years in the 1950s were often dominated by the spinning exploits of Lock and his partner, Jim Laker. It was an alliance culled from fierce personal rivalry but their names were twinned in cricket lore in a way more usually associated with opening batsmen or opening bowlers. Peter Walker, the former Glamorgan and England all-rounder, remembers the perils of facing the pair on the uncovered wickets of the time. ‘They induced a kind of fear; there was always the danger of receiving an unplayable ball.’

Lock, at seventeen the youngest player to represent the county in 1946, rose to eminence in a lenient regime. He was the first genuine slow left-arm bowler to play for Surrey. This distinction was soon revealed as a false dawn when he exchanged the hailed orthodoxy for a more violent mode of attack. After two winters spent working at a Croydon indoor school he emerged with a lower trajectory that produced waspish spin at around medium pace. The ball veered crazily from the leg stump to hit the top of the off and often leapt shoulder high.

Jim Parks, in Sussex, was one witness of the newly arrived vicious executioner. ‘As a youngster, Lockie had a nice straight arm and was a bowler with flight. Suddenly, the arm bent a little and he became absolutely lethal. He had an enormous drag, too, and he hurled the ball at you from about twenty yards. I scored a few runs against him but you had to fight when the wicket was doing a bit. It was quite a contest.’

Tony Lock won renown in three distinct phases as a cricketer. Contemporaries have said that there has never been a more aggressive spin bowler. His vintage years with Surrey were in the mid-1950s. He twice headed the national averages; he took 212 wickets in 1957, the last bowler to reach this milestone in a season. He is ninth in the list of all-time wicket-takers, with 2,844 wickets at 19.23 runs each. He was not to be underestimated as a batsman, as he is the only player to score 10,000 runs without a century.

All of my conversations have yielded abiding memories of Lock as a magician in the field, either in his favoured backward short-leg position, or pulling off breathtaking catches off his own bowling. Neville Cardus recalled Lock holding ‘quite sinful catches, catches which were not there until his rapid, hungry eyesight created them.’ Micky Stewart said: ‘The spectacular ones, the sudden full-length dives were the easy ones. His best were when he took the rockets close in, without anyone noticing.’ Lock’s brilliance as a close fieldsman brought him 831 catches, a career tally only exceeded by Frank Woolley and W.G. Grace.

Geoff Havercroft, the former secretary of the West Australian Cricket Association, first recommended the concept of this book to me. He has since been an able and diligent collaborator and researcher, and also used his good offices to arrange interviews with John Inverarity, the former WA captain, and Dennis Lillee, the current president at the WACA, during my visit to Perth in December 2006. I am most grateful to him for this service and also for undertaking interviews with Ian Brayshaw, Tony Mann and Graham McKenzie, other contemporaries of Lock. It was also good to meet two Surrey exiles again, Peter Loader and Ron Tindall, and be entertained and enlightened with their memories. Among immediate family and close friends I am also indebted to Lock’s sons, Richard and Graeme; his brother, Bryan; Nova Hearn, the cousin of his wife, Audrey Lock; Alan Wainscoat and the late Julia White, who offered splendid hospitality and recollections of her long-standing friendship with a great cricketer during a stay at her home in Pembrokeshire.

In England, Roger Packham, the historian, has given invaluable and much appreciated help and guidance in relating the events of Lock’s boyhood – and in drawing up profiles of his cricket mentors, headmaster Leonard Moulding and Sir Henry Leveson Gower, the former Surrey president and squire in the picturesque Surrey village of Limpsfield in the lee of the North Downs. Other contributors to the early years were Derek Horn, a fellow pupil at Limpsfield School, Sir Oliver Popplewell and John Banfield, both former Surrey Colts. Sir Oliver pointed me in the right direction when he said that Lock was the best he had seen for a boy of his age.

The remembrances of a great cricketer have been given further impetus in conversations with Surrey and England contemporaries. My book on Lock completes a quartet of studies – it follows Peter May, Jim Laker and the Bedsers – in the Surrey canon. So, this has been an opportunity to revisit the best of times in company with Sir Alec Bedser, Arthur McIntyre, Micky Stewart, Raman Subba Row, Pat Pocock, David Sydenham, Richard Jefferson, David Allen, Trevor Bailey, Doug Insole, Donald Carr, Peter Walker, Peter Richardson, Jim Parks and Tom Graveney. Yorkshire contemporaries, Brian Close, Ted Lester, Bob Appleyard and Raymond Illingworth, have also recalled the courage of a vaunted rival. Illingworth recalled, with some amusement, the keen rivalry between Lock and his arch rival for England honours in Yorkshire, Johnny Wardle. There was also praise from him for a bowler who was always a threat, ‘even when we were chasing a small target.’

Michael Turner, the former Leicestershire secretary, was another splendid host with cherished memories of his former captain at Grace Road. He, along with Lock’s off-spinning partner, Jack Birkenshaw, remembers the impact on the county’s fortunes in the mid-1960s. One of the most amazing aspects of Lock’s late-flowering career was that he was commuting between two countries 12,000 miles apart. The transformation in the fortunes at Leicester and in Western Australia raised the status of hitherto struggling cricket camps. One writer noted the portentous arrival of the veteran at Leicester: ‘Lock’s effect on the county was electrifying, the players were swept along by his leadership and came to believe, for the first time in Leicestershire’s history, that they were capable of beating any other county.’ He carried the county from the lower depths of the championship to second place to Yorkshire in his last season in 1967.

I must also thank archivists and librarians: David Studham, at the Melbourne Cricket Club; Sylvia Michael at Leicester; Jo Miller at the Oval; David Robertson at Canterbury and Rob Boddie at Hove for their support on a marathon project. David Bennett, the graphologist, has given character impressions based on Lock’s handwriting. Alf Batchelder, the Australian cricket historian, has provided illustration items and referred me to notes on the Sheffield Shield in his book, Pavilions in the Park. As always, my researches have been lightened by the courteous assistance of the British Newspaper Library staff at Colindale, London. Paul Dyson has brought his statistical expertise to the task of providing a detailed analysis of Lock’s career.

Tony Lock was the prince of showmen and the epitome of ebullience on the cricket field. A celebratory roll accompanied the taking of each and every wicket. He placed a severe strain on his vocal chords in his appeals. They reverberated loudly down the Harleyford Road at Kennington. It was said of him that when he appealed at the Oval, someone else was given out at Lord’s. There is a strong view that he was responsible for the current vogue of hugs and kisses in the modern game. It is not unfounded. He was always an affectionate man beneath the stern and forbidding façade.

Alan HillAugust 2008

ONE

From School to County

‘I shall never forget how good Tony Lock was even at that young age.’

– Sir Oliver Popplewell

The proud parent could not contain his glee. One Croydon opponent remembered the joy of Fred Lock on a summer’s day at Limpsfield in July 1929. The tumble of words was an extravagant gesture of pride at the birth of a great cricketer. In the years ahead it would be sealed as a prophetic announcement. ‘Fred rushed up to me and excitedly said: “We had a son yesterday, and he’s going to play for England.”’

Tony Lock, as the son of a domestic chauffeur and local cricket celebrity, grew up in the snug cluster of Surrey villages close to the north-west Kent border. Cricket at Limpsfield was played on the common, part of a swathe of ancient heath land which is so characteristic of this serene countryside. The village still retains its medieval character despite modern amenities; the centuries-old dwellings perch together as old friends that climb up the steep high street. The twelfth-century St Peter’s parish church, where both Lock and his elder brother, Bryan, were choirboys, nestles proudly in the lee of the North Downs.

Tucked at the bottom of the cricket field, little more than a six-hit away, is the church school, its tall windows and high ceilings betraying its Victorian origins. This is where headmaster Leonard Moulding held sway as a disciplinarian, running the school almost like a military academy for nearly thirty years. One former pupil, Derek Horn, remembers Moulding as a big man who dominated the classroom and regularly carried a cane in his hand to admonish offending children. ‘I think the other teachers as well as the children were in awe of him.’

One item in the school logbook in September 1941 cites the twelve-year-old Tony Lock as receiving punishment for misbehaviour. Punishment at the school was graded to fit the crime, the most severe for actions of outright insolence. The young Tony received the special attention of the headmaster for his offence. The ominous wording, ‘inflicted by’, specifies Moulding and that it was his cane that administered ‘six strokes on the hand and two on the seat.’

The religious assemblies held in a room adjoining the main school were followed by another instance of military-style discipline by Moulding. His pupils were constantly reminded that he had served as a physical training instructor in the Army during the First World War. At the end of the morning devotions, he would shepherd the children with the brisk tapping of his cane into a ‘left-right’ march back to the classroom. Playtime at the school was summarily ended with a blast on a whistle. This was a signal that everyone should keep still before the instruction to line up and form a ‘crocodile’ for an ordered return to lessons. ‘It was a kind of square-bashing for children,’ remembers Derek Horn.

None of the children was excluded from the Friday games day. Moulding selected two teams comprising his best players and another team called ‘the scraps’. A particularly testing exercise was fielding using a cricket cradle. ‘We were only little boys but our headmaster had no scruples. He threw the ball as hard as he could into the cradle,’ says Horn. It was a discipline designed to sharpen the reflexes. Only the most alert could cling on to the ball as it careered violently at differing angles from the slatted box. It was an early lesson for Tony Lock in achieving mastery as a fieldsman.

There was a strong patriotic atmosphere at the school in the final days of Britain’s imperial rule of the world. Commemorative days were zealously observed and the Empire Day celebrations were endowed with a special fervour. Leonard Moulding devised an elaborate programme, including the school’s annual sports day. There was a guest speaker, usually a prominent military dignitary, the ceremony of saluting the flag, an exhibition of school work, prize-giving on a dais beside the British Legion Club and concluding with teas for parents and children.

Leonard Moulding, despite his magisterial manner, was regarded as a man who ran a good school. He made sure as he presided over the classes that none of his pupils left without knowing how to read or write. He was particularly praised for the care he displayed during the years of the Second World War. One obituary on his death at the age of seventy-six in September 1965 commented: ‘As headmaster he will be remembered for the constant watch which he kept on the pupils’ welfare during the air raids.’

Limpsfield was a village under siege at the height of the German bombardment. From late August 1940 it suffered raids both by day and night. ‘We were on a direct line for attacks on London,’ recalls Derek Horn. ‘During the day it was the turn of fighter planes in aerial battles above us. It wasn’t exactly hellfire corner but it was pretty busy and frightening for a time.’

For the children of the village this involved rapid escapes to the air-raid shelters positioned on the perimeter of the cricket field. Most schooldays were interrupted by raid alerts and there were times when pupils were detained in shelters for entire mornings or afternoons. An exasperated Moulding wrote in the school logbook in October 1940: ‘There were five air-raid warnings today. Times were: 9.00 a.m. to 9.40, 9.50 to 10.55, 12.03 p.m. to 12.40, 1.20 to 2.20, and 3.05 to 3.33. Fifty-five children absent in the morning and seventy-seven in the afternoon.’ The shelters that once helped to guard Limpsfield children during the horrors of the Blitz have been reconstructed in association with the National Trust and are now used for history studies by another generation. Tony Lock grew to adolescence in the austere and grim years of the 1940s, although he did have the blessing of influential benefactors in his progress as a cricketer. Parental support was unfailing and he also came under the vigilant scrutiny of headmaster Leonard Moulding and the distinguished squire of Limpsfield, Henry Dudley Gresham Leveson Gower.

Leveson Gower (pronounced ‘Loosen Gore’) held high rank in English cricket for almost six decades. He was one of a Limpsfield family of a dozen brothers and known as ‘Shrimp’ among his associates because of his small stature. He was an Oxford blue at the turn of the twentieth century and led the university to a dramatic win by four wickets over Cambridge at Lord’s in 1896. One Oxford contemporary, Sir Foster Cunliffe, wrote of his captain: ‘We possessed in him the ideal Varsity captain. I have never played under such a leader and the team that finds one is indeed fortunate.’

Leveson Gower captained England in his only three Tests on the tour of South Africa in 1909/10. He represented Surrey from 1895 to 1920 and was the county captain for three years. He achieved equal if not greater renown as an administrator, including a long spell as a Test selector and service on both MCC and Surrey committees.

The dignitary of Titsey Place at Limpsfield did, in the natural order of things, establish a bond of sympathy with Leonard Moulding, a representative of the professional class and a shrewd cricket observer. Moulding was a veteran of the Limpsfield Club, representing them for over thirty years, as well as captain in the years leading up to the war. His liaison – a common undertaking – with Leveson Gower was one that would have great significance for an aspiring and enthusiastic pupil.

The parental pleasure of Fred Lock was heightened by their interest in his son. He was himself renowned as a fast bowler throughout East Surrey and West Kent. On his death in 1959 the Lock family inherited two mounted cricket balls. One was inscribed and marked his achievement in taking 9-15 for Limpsfield against Croydon in August 1923. This preceded the first references to him in the club records of 1924 and 1925, both against Oxted. He failed to score in the first game which Oxted won but not before his colleague Moulding had taken seven wickets in a closely contested match. Next season, in the return fixture between the local rivals, the tables were turned. Limpsfield were the victors and Fred Lock hit 30 and took 4-24. The Westerham Herald reported: ‘On a bumpy pitch some brilliant hitting by F. Lock enabled Limpsfield to pass Oxted’s total with six wickets down.’

It was highly possible that the ambitions that Fred Lock vested in his son, Tony, might have been realised by the father himself but for the demands of the recessionary years of the 1920s. As a signal of his all-round talents, he was offered terms by Surrey. He declined what must have been a tempting proposition. The hailed cricketer was mindful of his domestic responsibilities at a time when first-class cricket was hardly a financial sinecure. Instead he pursued a livelihood as chauffeur to the Sankey family in Blue House Lane in Limpsfield. Later, following the death of his employer, he set up in business as a painter and decorator.

Bereavements stalked the Lock family. Fred served in the Queen’s Royal West Kent Regiment in the First World War. He came through unscathed but had to suffer the mental scars of the death of his twin brother in the conflict. Family researches recently carried out by a granddaughter have brought to light another casualty – the death of another brother in the war. There was a bereavement of more immediate concern to Tony and his brother, Bryan. Tony was only eleven when his mother died in early 1941, aged just fifty-one. It was a cruel blow and the widowed father sought to alleviate the loss by careful ministry of his children. Always protective, Fred regularly escorted Tony on his forays in junior cricket.

Limpsfield – and its neighbouring village Oxted – have played hosts to many distinguished cricketers. Clapham-born Neville Knox, who played in two Tests for England in 1907 and was for a brief time the equal of any fast bowler in the country, was among the luminaries who represented Oxted between first-class engagements. Before the First World War, when less county cricket was played, it was relatively easy for amateurs like Knox to move between county and club. Henry Leveson Gower accepted the Oxted captaincy in 1896 on ‘the understanding I am likely to be away a great deal playing for Surrey.’

Another of the itinerant amateurs at Oxted was E.R.T. (Errol) Holmes. Holmes was invited to captain the club in 1928. He had scored a century for Oxford in the Varsity match the previous year and would later captain Surrey both before and after the Second World War. Fred Lock was his opponent on one derby occasion. He was never fazed by reputations and, in Holmes’s first recorded match for Oxted, he dismissed the university centurion for nought.

The rivalry between Oxted and Limpsfield produced the fiercest of local derbies. It was never keener than in the series of encounters in the 1940s, the formative years of Tony Lock. The fixture had originated in 1892 and Oxted held sway for many seasons in the inter-war period. Twelve years had elapsed before Limpsfield recorded their first victory in 1934. They were set a target of 106 in two and a half hours.

‘The Oxted bowling was very steady and the fielding remarkably keen and but for a splendid innings by L.A. Moulding it is extremely doubtful whether Limpsfield would have got the runs,’ reported The Westerham Herald.

The intensity of these games was illustrated in another anecdote featuring Moulding, the Limpsfield captain. Oxted had been dismissed for a small total but as a counter they had in their ranks a formidable opening bowler, Bob Collyer Hamlin. Hamlin was swiftly on the offensive; his third ball struck Moulding over the heart. There was intense concern among the surrounding huddle of players as the stricken captain received attention. Moulding was sufficiently recovered to take guard again. The unabashed bowler sent down another stinging delivery. The batsman staggered once more at the impact of the blow.

There was now one ball remaining and it must have seemed to the embattled Moulding that the over would never end. As he recovered for the second time, the stentorian voice of Percy Widney, the village postman, echoed from his bench in front of the British Legion Club. ‘Hit the bugger again, Bob,’ went up his cry.

Leonard Moulding, a splendid coach by all accounts, spent many hours discussing the merits of Tony Lock as he monitored the progress of the boy. Cross-country running was among Tony’s sporting accomplishments but cricket was always the first priority. Moulding recognised from the outset that his pupil was endowed with natural ability. One delightful photograph in a family album shows him at the age of six, accoutred for cricket, wearing pads and holding a bat. As a boy he tested his growing strength and reflexes by throwing and catching a ball.

Tony first played for St Peter’s Church school team at the age of eleven and took over the captaincy in his last two summers at school. His weekend cricket at Limpsfield was restricted to Saturdays because it was common ground and became a public recreation area on Sunday. It did not mean a break in cricket; he simply transferred his allegiance to Oxted on the Sabbath. Claude Whitworth, the former Surrey Colt, recalled playing against Tony at Oxted. Fred Lock was the club umpire and his neutrality might have been affected when his son was bowling. It was a tricky assignment for him as well as opponents. Perhaps there was just a suspicion of bias in his response to the appeals of his son – ‘How was that, Dad?’

There was a special bonus for Tony of good net wickets at Limpsfield because the common was also the home of the local club. It was an extensive playing area without boundary fences and included parts of the eighth and nine holes of the nearby golf club as well as a vast acreage of common land.

A career in cricket was always Tony’s goal but between times, after leaving school, he was apprenticed to a local cabinet-maker. It was a short-lived venture as he related; he was dismissed for daydreaming about cricket and leaving an ugly scar on the glass top of a dressing table that he was smoothing with pumice stone!

Bryan Lock remembers greater concentration during the hours of diligent practice carried out in a field adjacent to their home. ‘Father always keenly encouraged Tony in his cricket ambitions,’ he says. The practices included the time-honoured quest for accuracy in bowling at a single wicket. The quickening mastery of Tony in this basic tenet is shown by the tribute of Bryan: ‘Although he was nearly four years younger than me, I always found difficulty in facing his bowling.’ Bryan, by his own admission, was less conscientious in his practices and was thus denied parental encouragement.

The elder brother, like his father, designated his cricket as a leisure pursuit. He did, however, play club cricket into his late sixties. Before moving to Hampshire he was a member at Oxted, which celebrated its centenary in 1990. Bryan remembers Oxted as a lovely ground, the ‘magnificent jewel in the centre of the village’, in the words of another witness. Guy Bennett, the Rector of Oxted, coupled his tribute with a glance in the direction of St Mary’s Church in the village. ‘If you want to conjure up a picture of a traditional English village there is no better scene than a game of cricket on a village green with a parish church (preferably with a solid Norman tower) as the background.’ The Oxted ground is situated in Master Park adjacent to the Hoskins Arms hotel, both named after the local squire, Captain Hoskins Master. The Hoskins Masters, father and son, were custodians of this country retreat and generous benefactors to the village club for over seventy years.

Summers at Oxted have been graced by benefit matches for Surrey players on wickets acknowledged as among the best in the county. The seasons in their turn brought the celebrations of the annual fête, travelling fairs, circuses and donkey derbies. An idyllic setting did lead to indiscriminate use of the ground. The intrusions were brought into question at one club dinner when the public were warned that Master Park was not designed for perambulator walks, racing tracks, or in the evening, a courting track. The Oxted secretary at the time said that choir boys were the worst offenders; they went to church and sang ‘We plough the fields and scatter’, and then went on the field and did it.

By the time that Tony Lock came under his patronage, Henry Leveson Gower, who would later be knighted for his services to cricket, had assumed the presidency of Surrey. Through his good offices – and the recommendation of Leonard Moulding – Tony, as a fourteen-year-old, first played for the Surrey Colts against Kenley on 29 April 1944. The Colts won by 112 runs. Tony did not bat and watched his future county colleague Dave Fletcher score 89 out of a total of 182. There was just time for Tony to enjoy his first bowl in the county’s junior ranks. He took 1-10 in eight overs.

Prolonged success as a bowler rewarded the Surrey recruit in his debut season in 1944. Fletcher vied with his colleague, scoring a century, while Lock took 7-37 in a victory by seven wickets over Dorking. In successive matches against King’s College, Wimbledon and Epsom he captured 13 wickets for 26 runs. Greeting these feats was a percipient note in the Surrey Yearbook. ‘G.A.R. Lock (left-arm slow) although only fifteen, will be an asset to the side in the future.’ Lock later recalled: ‘At that stage, I was bowling slow, and earned my wickets mostly by flight. This was something that came naturally to me, part of the ball sense I possessed. I did not genuinely spin the ball then.’

Sir Oliver Popplewell, then a fellow Surrey Colt, enthuses about Lock in those apprentice days. ‘I shall never forget how good he was for a boy of his age. Tony was, for all the time I knew him, an orthodox left-hand bowler whose enthusiasm was enormous and much encouraged by his energetic father who followed him to every game. His fielding even as a boy was of the highest quality. His talents at the age of sixteen were self-evident.’

Tony’s youthful exploits also won favour with the Surrey Colts manager, Mr G.S. Bungay, the fixtures manager and the sole selector who attended every match. At the end of the war Surrey asked him to recommend his four best colts. Henry Leveson Gower had also been keeping a watch on the county prospects. Lock, from his home village, aroused his particular interest. Leveson Gower telephoned Bungay one day to confirm his hopes for the boy. The sequel to the call was Tony’s introduction to the Oval.

In a letter to the county club Bungay wrote: ‘I have put Lock in because he bowls so well for a boy of sixteen although I am rather dubious of slow left-arm bowlers at the Oval.’ This was a pointed reference to the heartbreaks facing bowlers on the featherbed wickets prevailing before the war. Lock thus gained the distinction of being the first genuine slow left-arm bowler to represent Surrey.

Bungay’s other choices were Dave Fletcher, Claude Whitworth and Peter Wingate. Whitworth, as an all-rounder, was considered to have tremendous potential. He was outstanding in 1945, the season in which Lock blossomed as a cricketer. Whitworth also impressed Andrew Sandham, the Surrey coach, and Laurie Fishlock, the county veteran. The stylish youngster starred in a match against a Lord’s eleven as late as 1949, scoring 82 against opposition which included Gubby Allen, Charles Palmer, Jim Sims and Ian Peebles. There were also first-team outings as a member of strong Surrey teams in matches against Sussex and the Australian Services elevens in 1945. In that season Whitworth dominated the Colts batting averages with 314 runs at an average of 67.80, and Lock was the leading bowler with 42 wickets at 10.14 runs apiece.

Lock, in the end, was the only one of the boys to accept the offer of a contract worth £3 10s a week at the Oval. He was the first to be given a contract without the formality of a trial. Whitworth, with a coveted promotion within his grasp, declined the offer. His reason was the disparity between cricket and his earnings elsewhere. The Surrey Yearbook dryly noted: ‘Cricket as a profession had no appeal for him.’

In 1947 Lock was a member of the Surrey Second XI which finished as runner-up to Yorkshire in the Minor Counties Championship. Surrey, under the captaincy of the Hon. R.R. Blades, won nine games, including three by an innings and two by ten wickets, and lost only one championship match in addition to defeat in the deciding challenge game against Yorkshire. Geoff Whittaker, Tom Clark and Bernie Constable were the mainstays of a strong batting side. The accurate fast bowling of Stuart Surridge and Peter Westerman was complemented by the spin attack of John McMahon (34 wickets at 12.44) and Lock (42 wickets at 17.42).

Jim Laker, a senior Surrey colleague, remembered Lock as a ‘tall, slim and enthusiastic youngster, with a head full of ginger hair, and a quiff falling down over his ears.’ Laker and Lock were paired for the first time in a second XI game at Bristol. On a sandy pitch the ball spun at right angles. ‘Monty Cranfield tore through us with nine wickets which seemed to suggest that I was due for a hatful.’ In Gloucestershire’s reply, Laker pursed his lips in annoyance as four straightforward catches slipped through the hands of his short-leg fieldsman. The culprit was Lock. ‘I looked at the crestfallen Tony and said to our skipper: “Do the kid a favour and stick him on the boundary. He will never be a short leg as long as he plays the game.”’ It was a comment that Lock never forgot and he relished reminding his senior of the gaffe in the years ahead.

An auspicious season for Lock in the Surrey seconds had been preceded by his first-team debut, eight days after his seventeenth birthday in July 1946. He was the youngest player to represent Surrey and the opponents were Kent at the Oval. Lock batted at no.11 and watched Arthur McIntyre and Whittaker hit centuries. He bowled ten overs, conceding 24 runs, and took the first of his catches for Surrey to dismiss Arthur Phebey off the bowling of Alf Gover.

Lock recalled that Phebey essayed a hook and mishit the ball which spiralled in the air towards square leg. ‘I saw it leave the bat but then, to my horror, lost it in the dark background of the flats that encircled the Oval. The next thing I knew was that the ball was dropping three yards to my right. I frantically darted a couple of paces, and then dived the rest of the way.’

Describing this early example of his agility in the field, Lock then plunged, as he said, into a ‘two-point’ landing on his right shoulder and the back of his neck. ‘Fortunately, I managed to shoot out an arm and scoop it beneath the ball and the ground. I held on for dear life.’ Gover looked across and smiled approvingly. ‘Well done, young ’un,’ he said.

Lock was given one more first-team appearance – against the touring South Africans in 1947 – before his call-up for National Service in the Royal Artillery the following year. Early in his services training he began to suffer problems affecting his right knee. The strenuous ‘square-bashing’ exercises at Bodmin in Cornwall probably contributed to a worrying injury. Both cartilages in the knee were removed in an operation at Truro Hospital.

In later years teammates and opponents alike would marvel at Lock’s courage, beset, as he was, by the gruelling strain of the knee handicap. The preparations for a day’s play, involving extensive bandaging of the affected limb, would have overcome a less dauntless man. The Lock ‘hobble’ became a familiar sight at the Oval. It vied with the stumbling, nautical walk of his England colleague, Denis Compton, whose own knee troubles at one stage produced near apoplexy among the Test selectors and his cricket admirers.

Bryan Lock has referred to his brother’s subsequent discharge from the Army on medical grounds. The elder Lock believes that although the problem restricted mobility it may also have influenced Tony’s excellent fielding close to the wicket. Athleticism was required here, too, but he was usually spared the gallops in the outfield.

There were proud days to bolster Lock’s morale in the Army during 1948. He took 6-48 in the Combined Services’ victory by 66 runs over Glamorgan, the ultimate county champions, at Pontypridd. Wisden praised the ‘clever left-hand spin bowling of Gunner Lock, the young Surrey professional.’ At Lord’s in August, the Army beat the Royal Navy by eight wickets. Lock’s three wickets included that of writer P.B.H. May, his future Surrey and England captain. May fell for just six runs to a catch by Major General A.T.H Cassels off the bowling of Lock. The senior officer might well have reversed the usual order of things in saluting the bowler for bringing about the downfall of a prolific scorer.

On his return to the Oval in 1949 Lock confirmed his ascendancy over his spinning rival, John McMahon. ‘At the age of twenty Lock revealed considerable promise as a slow left-arm bowler and consequently McMahon could not retain his place,’ commented Wisden. McMahon, a South Australian and a vigorous personality, was Lock’s senior by twelve years. He had been capped by Surrey in the previous year. The arrival of his successor usurped his authority and he left the Oval for Somerset in 1954.

Peter Loader, another Surrey colleague, amusingly recalls the episode of McMahon’s departure. ‘Our great friend, “Digger” was very successful as a finger-spinner and, if required, as a wrist-spinner, too. Suddenly, Lockie came on the scene and blew him away with the beautiful legal action.’ McMahon thereupon went to see the Surrey secretary, Brian Castor. ‘Lockie’s taken over,’ he said. ‘I’m no further use to this club.’

Castor looked quizzically through his monocle at the player. ‘My dear chap, do settle down. Whatever is the matter? Why do you want to leave Surrey?’ McMahon replied: ‘It’s for the same reason as when you left Essex to come here. ’ The interview ended abruptly with Castor reaching for a shelf and hurling a book at him. ‘Well, at least it was Wisden,’ added McMahon. Castor’s monocle used to bristle with menace, as in this encounter, at any wrongdoing. The Australian’s effrontery fell into a similar category as that of one misguided supporter who chose to wear a richly decorated Hawaiian tee shirt in the Long Room at the Oval. ‘You, sir,’ thundered Castor, ‘the Battersea funfair is somewhere down the road.’

The heralds welcoming Tony Lock to the Oval in the late 1940s included Alec Bedser. ‘Lockie,’ remembers Sir Alec, ‘had a good brain and was an intelligent cricketer.’ He had watched, with interest, the progress of the youngster after his demobilisation. His memory is of a ‘fine slow bowler with a good use of flight.’ A telling example of this sleight of hand was Lock’s dismissal of Denis Compton – a prized scalp for a newcomer – who was stumped by McIntyre in Eddie Watts’s benefit match against Middlesex at the Oval in 1949.