“Too daring for the grey-beards?”: The Mental Health of Harold Gimblett

Harold Gimblett in 1936 (Image: Wikipedia)

The incredible first-class debut of Harold Gimblett, the 20-year-old son of a farmer, for Somerset in 1935 catapulted him to fame from the very start of his career. His 63-minute century against Essex was one of the most spectacular debuts by any player and suggested that a promising career was beginning. When Gimblett was forced to retire 19 years later owing to a severe mental health condition which required his admission to hospital, he had largely fulfilled that promise. Over those years, he was to prove more than useful. He became — and remains, almost seventy years after his retirement — Somerset’s leading run-scorer in first-class cricket. He was an entertainer much loved by the county’s supporters and played many great innings. And yet underneath the success, there was tension and bitterness, to which there were two contributing factors. The first was the nature of cricket in the years around the Second World War: a Somerset Committee which handled all professionals with a brutal lack of sympathy, empathy or understanding, and a sport riven by deliberate class distinction in which the amateurs were on top, and professionals were treated as menial hired hands (a distinction which was often harsher at counties like Somerset which had a greater proportion of amateurs in the team). But the second factor was Gimblett’s own lifelong struggle with mental health.

Most of what we know about this comes from Gimblett’s own account, provided in a series of tape recordings intended for the ears of David Foot, with whom he planned to collaborate on an autobiography. The project never got off the ground before Gimblett’s suicide in 1978, but Foot turned the searingly, painfully honest recordings into a 1982 biography Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket. There had never quite been anything like it before, owing to the fact that Gimblett did not intend his words to be published when he spoke them (but he gave permission, as did his widow after his death, for Foot to use them) and so they did not have the usual filter applied by sporting stars in writing their autobiographies. There is no parallel account of the life of a cricketer in the period around the Second World War. And yet his words find an echo in the experiences of modern players whose mental health suffers under the unrelenting pressure of professional and international sport. This can be seen most clearly in his memories of his Test debut for England in the first match of a series against India in 1936, in which he dreaded having to play. But an unbeaten, match-winning 67 in the second innings (the highest score of the game) provided him with another fairly-tale debut and meant that he retained his place. This proved something of a turning point for him.

At the time, the England selectors were looking around for new players to refresh the team and replace some veterans after a string of poor results. For the second Test, Gimblett’s opening partner was the debutant Arthur Fagg, who like him was only 21 years old. In a high-scoring game, Gimblett made just nine runs out of England’s 571 for eight declared. He also missed a catch when India batted and was dropped from the team for the third Test. While somewhat relieved to escape from the pressure, he was affected for the rest of the summer by what he perceived as his failure, which continued to weigh on his mind and impacted on his form. After his Somerset debut the previous summer, he had similarly struggled for consistency in the aftermath, but never questioned his own methods. Nor had he particularly clashed with the Somerset authorities. But something seemed to change (if we can believe his own account) now that he was an international cricketer. The Somerset Committee attempted to force him to temper his aggression, but he was not willing to compromise, even when he form had fallen away. For the rest of the season, he struggled with the hook shot, which he had always played successfully, and sought out Herbert Sutcliffe, an acknowledged expert at the shot, for technical advice. An unsympathetic Somerset Committee simply told him to stop playing the shot, which he refused to do. He also clashed with his captain after one game in which he hit a full toss for six in the last over of a day’s play; he was told that he would be dropped if he ever took such a risk again.

The result of all this was another loss of form. In his first five matches of the season, Gimblett had scored 623 runs with three centuries, at an average of 103.83. By the time of his selection for England, he had scored 1,041 runs in 12 matches at 57.83. In the remainder of the season, he managed just 605 runs at 18.91. His final record for 1936 was 1,608 first-class runs at an average of 32.81; respectable but far short of what seemed possible at the start. His temperament in big matches and his slip fielding were also questioned by Wisden, which, as it had done after his debut, counselled a more careful approach. But how much had the scrutiny of the opening weeks of the season, and the pressure — and what would probably today be termed as anxiety — before his England debut affected him? The effects lasted into the following two seasons, when Gimblett struggled to live up to the potential identified in the press. Others overtook him in the race for England places, and he seemed unsure of the best way to bat. He was heavily criticised in 1937 for his overly aggressive batting and was briefly dropped down the order. Yet he was outwardly unconcerned and stubbornly maintained his approach; sometimes he seemed overconfident and played in deliberately unorthodox fashion. Again, this is perhaps less an indication of arrogance and more a sign that all was not well. He still managed 1,500 runs that summer, at an average just over thirty, but fell away in 1938, and his average dropped to 27. Moreover, he was often unfit, battling “aches and pains”.

Gimblett at his wedding to Ria Burgess in 1938 (Image: Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (1982) by David Foot)

Gimblett finally began to recover his batting skill in 1939, and made a distinct advance. Perhaps this was early a result of his previous experiences, or perhaps it arose from a change in his personal life. In December 1938, he had married Marguerita (Rita) Burgess, whom he had known for some years. They eventually had a son, Lawrence. Whatever the cause, Gimblett made an excellent start to the 1939, similar to that of 1936, and scored 905 runs in his first seven games. Such form resulted in a recall to the England team for the first Test against the West Indies team that toured during the season. Perhaps unfortunately, it was once more played at Lord’s, a ground that often made him uncomfortable owing to what he perceived as extreme snobbery and social prejudice. In the first innings, he was bowled by John Cameron for 22 when he lost sight of a flighted delivery; in the second, he hit his first two deliveries, bowled by Leslie Hylton, for four and six, as England chased a target against the clock. But in looking to score quickly, he was bowled by Manny Martindale. Unlike during his previous Test appearances, his fielding was singled out for praise in Wisden; he took one spectacular catch to dismiss Ken Weekes, for which he was congratulated by the new batter, Learie Constantine. But he had not done quite enough and was dropped for the final time, having played only three Tests for England. Although it is hard to be certain, some of his team-mates suspected in later years that, whenever there was a chance that he might come back into England selection, such as before a touring team was chosen, he deliberately batted poorly so that he would not be picked. Nevertheless, in 1939 he managed to maintain his form and finished the season with 1,922 runs at 40.89.

The outbreak of war in 1939 brought a pause in Gimblett’s career, and he found the next few years difficult. He volunteered for the Air Force, but for reasons that are not quite clear was instead allocated to the Fire Service where his duties involved dealing with the aftermath of bombing raids. Foot notes that some of Gimblett’s team-mates thought that guilt from not seeing active service affected him after the war. But he was equally affected by his experiences as a fireman, especially when some of his colleagues were killed in an air raid, and he possibly suffered depression from having to deal with the destruction. Foot had received information that “his dormitory locker was full of pills.”

When county cricket resumed, Gimblett did better than ever. Somerset were surprisingly good in 1946 and finished fourth in the County Championship; Gimblett was a key player, averaging almost fifty. More circumspect than he had been, he still was capable of powerful shots but was less reckless. He scored his first double-century when he hit 231 against Middlesex in 320 minutes (32 fours, 1 six). If there was a slightly drop-off in 1947, the team leaned almost entirely on his runs in 1948. Against Sussex that summer, he scored 310 (465 minutes, 37 fours, 2 sixes), the highest innings by a Somerset player, surpassing the 52-year-old record set by the amateur Lionel Palairet, who scored 292 in 1896. However, the Somerset Committee refused to recognise the achievement. Gimblett said: “Arthur Wellard went to see the secretary, Brigadier Lancaster. ‘Harold’s just made 300. Will you allow a collection around the ground for him?’ The answer was prompt: “He’s paid to score 300. There will be no collection.’ I think that was when I first decided my career with Somerset was going to end. I was deeply hurt.” He and his team-mates suspected that the Somerset hierarchy were displeased that a professional had beaten the record of a famous and revered amateur from the past. But that was not his only spectacular achievement in 1948: against Glamorgan, he scored 70 which included six sixes in 13 balls from Len Muncer.

Somerset in 1946, illustrated on a benefit leaflet for F. S. Lee (Image: Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (1982) by David Foot)

This immediate post-war period was perhaps Gimblett’s peak as a cricketer. He was adored by the Somerset crowds and enjoyed their adulation. But this brought its own internal pressures. While he struggled with the scrutiny and expectations of playing for England, and although he did not like journalists or the press in general, he enjoyed hogging the headlines for Somerset and was sometimes jealous of team-mates who usurped the attention. He hated to fail, and team-mates described how he would throw his bat around the dressing room if he was dismissed cheaply; they knew to keep away. Nor did they criticise him, because he did not respond well; in fairness, he did not especially enjoy praise either. Yet it left him with a reputation as something of a prima donna, not least because his reactions could be unpredictable. Foot tells several stories: how he once refused a drink from a Somerset member after he scored a large century, and had to be persuaded to accept; how he angrily shouted at Lancashire members who were critical of an umpiring decision that went against their team: “Why don’t you go back to the bloody mills and do an honest day’s work”; how when he was dismissed early in an innings played at Lord’s, and an MCC member complained “I’m sorry you are out, Gimblett; I’ve come a long way to watch you bat”, he stopped and replied: “You ought to have bloody well stayed at home.”

Nor was he a particularly good team-mate. Although he got on well with the other professionals, he was not especially interested in their success. He did not usually watch them bat, and only rarely offered technical advice despite being knowledgable about such matters. And he did not always consider the interests of his team while he was batting; he sometimes played how he wanted to play rather than as the situation demanded and sometimes was prone to play deliberately poorly if he knew selectors were watching. One amateur team-mate, according to Foot, suggested that if he was hit by a short ball (although he was generally very skilled against bouncers and fast bowling), he sometimes surrendered his wicket shortly after. Nevertheless, when the mood took him, he was a good team man, getting his head down and seeing off the new ball, or battling through difficult situations when Somerset were in trouble. Yet he never wanted responsibility and captaincy held no appeal for him.

Perhaps more importantly, Gimblett rarely got along with the amateurs in the team and could be difficult for the captain to deal with, particularly at a time when Somerset had a succession of short-lived captains who struggled to establish themselves. In fact, he had a problem with authority, refusing the demands of the Somerset Committee to drop the hook shot; he lacked deference even towards figures as distinguished as Pelham Warner. As the writer (and former Somerset player) R. C. Robertson-Glasgow put it: “Someone remarked that perhaps he is too daring for the grey-beards. My own view is that he is also too daring for the majority of the black-beards, brown beards and the all-beards, who sit in judgement on batsmen; in short, too daring for those who have never known what it is to dare in cricket.” The editor of a local newspaper who went to school with Gimblett called him an “infuriating enigma”. John Daniell, a hugely influential figure at Somerset for much of Gimblett’s time there, was baffled by the opener. He was often heard muttering: “That bloody Gimblett”. The latter in turn never forgave Daniell for rejecting him as a Somerset player before he made his famous debut (when he was chosen, just as an unsuccessful two-week trial was coming to an end, largely because no-one else was available).

Off the field, Gimblett had a reputation as a hypochondriac; he complained of aches and pains and suffered from migraines. He frequently visited doctors and was known, particularly after his mental health struggles became serious, for always having bottles of painkillers in his kit. He often kept to himself and was very introverted. Yet his rebelliousness was admired by his fellow professionals, who often conformed to get ahead.

Gimblett set another record in 1949, when he reached 2,000 first-class runs in the season for the first time; his 2,063 runs was the highest in a season for Somerset (beating Frank Lee’s 2,019 runs in 1938). During another solid season in 1950, Gimblett made runs for Somerset against the touring West Indies team. As a result, when Len Hutton withdrew from the England Test side, Gimblett was chosen to replace him. However, Gimblett developed a painful carbuncle on his neck and therefore was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to play; there were suggestions that the carbuncle might have arisen through the stress of his selection.

During the 1950–51 season, a “Commonwealth XI” toured India and what was then known as Ceylon; this took place at the same time that an England team toured Australia. Gimblett was chosen in the Commonwealth team and did reasonably well on the field. But he did not enjoy the tour: “It was a bad time for me — I had no energy, no spark, no conversation. I became very withdrawn. At first I wondered whether I’d picked up a bug. But it was purely mental.” He also struggled with Indian food and climate; he lost weight and came home looking very thin. Foot concluded that “Gimblett was temperamentally unsuited to touring”. But even this might be harsh; the experience he describes sounds very similar to the accounts of more recent England players, like Jonathan Trott and Marcus Trescothick, who hated the life of a touring cricketer, which exacerbated their symptoms of anxiety.

Gimblett batting at Bristol against Gloucestershire in 1953 (Image: Harold Gimblett: Tormented Genius of Cricket (1982) by David Foot)

The after-effects of the tour lingered into the 1951 season and Gimblett took a complete break in July, after doctors told him that he was “run down”. When he returned in August, he scored three centuries. The instability of the Somerset team cannot have helped; both the captain and Gimblett’s opening partner changed with bewildering frequency in this period. During his benefit season of 1952, he scored 2,000 runs again. At the end of the season, he took his family on a six-month trip to Rhodesia after being invited there in order to coach and play a little cricket. He was tempted to stay but chose to honour his Somerset contract and, according to Foot, “the pending political mood [in Rhodesia] bothered him.” Although he scored heavily again in 1953, there were suggestions that he had stopped enjoying the game and rumours of his imminent retirement, or his need for psychiatric treatment, circulated. Although he continued to bat well, Foot suggested that he was “inclined to look an old man” even though he was only 38. Gimblett himself said: “I couldn’t take much more. I was taking sleeping pills to make me sleep and others to wake me up. By the end of 1953, the world was closing in on me. I couldn’t offer any reason why and I don’t think the medical profession knew, either. There were months of the past season that I couldn’t remember at all.”

After struggling over Christmas 1953, Gimblett was admitted to the mental hospital Tone Vale (near Taunton) and had electro-convulsant therapy twice a week. He was a patient for sixteen weeks before rejoining Somerset for the 1954 season. He struggled through pre-season and played the first game although he wanted to come off mid-innings. When he was out for 29, he returned to the dressing room and had what Foot called “a bitter little monologue”, while Gimblett said that “I wanted to get it all out of the system in one go.” There were suggestions that he was reported to the Secretary; in the next game, he scored a duck against Yorkshire and when he returned to the dressing room, said that he couldn’t take any more. He left the ground mid-game; he batted in the second innings but was told by the captain to take some time off. He never played for Somerset again; he was soon a patient at Tone Vale once more. When he returned to the county ground later in the season to sit in the scorers’ box, he was ordered to leave.

The rejection, and lack of sympathy from Somerset throughout his career, left Gimblett bitter. Although he served on the Somerset Committee in the 1960s, and was heavily involved in fund-raising, he never quite forgave the county. These feelings were doubtless exacerbated by his mental health struggles, which continued for the rest of his life. He never knew the cause because he never received a diagnosis. But his problems were by no means limited to his cricketing experiences.

At the time of his enforced retirement, Gimblett had amassed an excellent record. He had scored 23,007 first-class runs at 36.17 (and took 41 wickets at 51.80); of those, 21,142 were for Somerset and even today, almost seventy years after his retirement, he remains Somerset’s leading run-scorer in first-class cricket, just ahead of Marcus Trescothick. In among those runs, he scored fifty first-class centuries; all but one came for Somerset, but he is second to Trescothick in the list of leading century scorers for the county. His innings of 310 remains the fifth highest score for Somerset; it was surpassed by Viv Richards in 1985 (and the record-holder is currently Justin Langer with 341). In his three Test matches, he scored 129 runs at 32.25.

After leaving Somerset, Gimblett briefly played professionally for Ebbw Vale Cricket Club, having struggled to find other employment. He also began to work at a steel works in South Wales as a safety inspector. He struggled with his mental health and the job in the steel works — and the unions — and at one point drove back to Somerset alone for a day, not returning home until the night. In his second season at Ebbw Vale, he left the steel works and took a job working on a farm but his schedule left him too tired to play for the club mid-week and his contract was terminated by mutual agreement. He later took a job at R. J. O. Meyer’s Millfield School as the head coach, with half an eye on returning to play for Somerset. Meyer was supportive but the Committee did not want Gimblett to return. In any case, he worked for twenty years at Millfield, performing various roles (including running the sports shop) and playing plenty of informal cricket. When Meyer retired, Gimblett’s relationship with the school became fractious and he began to hate his job. At one point, recognising that he was struggling, he applied to another school before changing his mind. He once more was treated in a mental hospital with electro-convulsant therapy. He retired on medical advice, not least as he was struggling with various physical ailments (some of which required surgery in later years).

In his final years became more and more reclusive, and by the end of his life actively disliked cricket. Even his wife, to whom he remained close, told Foot that she never entirely understood him. In his turn, Gimblett felt that he had been unkind to her early in their relationship, and regretted it. In March 1978, Gimblett took an overdose and was discovered next morning by his wife. Foot summarised this unhappy ending: “The tragedy is that he was able to share too little of the joy and sheer pleasure he brought to the game of cricket.” But this seems too simple of a conclusion for a complicated man who clearly had endured serious mental health problems which would have been beyond the comprehension of his contemporaries, little understood by the medical establishment of the time and even when Foot was writing in 1982 remained a source of shame and stigmatisation. Perhaps in the modern world — and even in modern cricket — Gimblett might have received better treatment (in both the medical and professional sense).

We cannot do justice to such a complex issue — nor, in fairness, to a complex life — here. But perhaps we can consider his standing as a cricketer. A sympathetic obituary in Wisden, although it did not mention his cause of death, summarised his career very effectively: “People sometimes talk as if after [his debut] he was a disappointment. In fact his one set-back, apart from being overlooked by the selectors, was when in 1938, probably listening to the advice of grave critics, he attempted more cautious methods and his average dropped to 27. But can one call disappointing a man who between 1936 and his retirement in 1953 never failed to get his 1,000 runs, who in his career scored over 23,000, more than any other Somerset player, and fifty centuries, the highest 310 against Sussex at Eastbourne in 1948, and whose average for his career was over 36?”

“He found the pleasure of life at Oxford too alluring”: The Disgrace of Thomas Barkley Raikes

Thomas Barkley Raikes in 1924 (Image: The Cricketer Annual 1924–25)

Cricket is full of the stories of players whose lives took turns for the worse. Some of these misfortunes were a product of the system in which the sport — and the whole of society — operated, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Other people caused their own troubles, whether through poor choices or the lifestyle they chose. But while the downfall of professional cricketers was often regretfully proclaimed — as both a warning and a morality tale — by the establishment, amateurs were given far more latitude. Blind eyes were turned and discreet veils of silence were smoothly draped over problems. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the case of the disappearing Oxford Blue who ended what appears to have been years of increasingly wild living with an outright attempt at fraud, without the cricket world batting an eyelid. He disappeared from the pages of Wisden, and from the shores of England, with a minimum of fuss.

Thomas Barkley Raikes was the son of Ernest Barkley Raikes and Hilda Barkley. His father’s side of the family had a cricketing background: Ernest played for the minor county Norfolk, and played first-class cricket in India; Ernest’s brother George represented Norfolk, Oxford University and Hampshire. The second of four children, Tom Raikes was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1902, where his father worked as a barrister and was at one time on the staff of Lord Harris during the latter’s governorship of Bombay. The family seem to have returned to England around the time of Tom’s birth; the two youngest children were born in Norfolk. By the time of the 1911 census, Tom Raikes was a pupil in Suffolk at a small school run by a nurse, Florence Maud Everard. Then from 1916 until 1921, he attended Winchester College, one of the most prestigious public schools in England, where he was a member of Turner’s (one of the school boarding houses).

There is plenty that could be said about the somewhat sadistic nature of English public schools in this period. Pupils came from immensely privileged backgrounds but this was not reflected in their treatment, at least part of which was aimed at toughening them up to take their place in Britain and its empire. Winchester seems to have been harsher than most. Much has been written about life there, for example the privately published Winchester 1916–1921 (which exactly matches Raikes’ time there) by E. T. R. Herdman. Christopher Douglas described life there in Spartan Cricketer (1984), his biography of Douglas Jardine, the England captain who was at Winchester in the same period (he was two years older than Raikes). To give just a flavour of what it was like at Winchester, new pupils were required to learn “notions”, which Douglas described as “a secret vocabulary, grammar and code of behaviour consisting at that time of over 1,000 items. The published glossary in the London Library runs to two volumes.”

Winchester College Cloisters (Image: Historic England)

Douglas also wrote that Winchester “was a terrifying place for any new boy” and that the older boys frequently abused the considerable power that the Winchester system placed in their hands, with the tacit acceptance of the teaching staff. “To enter Winchester in 1914 [when Jardine enrolled] was to go back 30 years in time. While other schools had dispensed with some of the more austere nineteenth-century customs, Winchester remained unchanged, an upholder of the noble virtues in an age of moral and cultural decline. Life at the school was harsh, monastic and governed by a strict routine.”

Douglas outlined a typical day: boys were woken at 6:30 for a wash in cold water (hot water was only used to wash after games; one former pupil told Douglas that he remembered having to run naked through an open passageway to the washhouse even in the snow). Lessons commenced with Latin and Greek — the main subjects — at 7:00, followed by chapel at 7:45 and a meagre snack. Work then carried on for four hours before a lunch which was “an unappetising affair at the best of times, but when the wartime food shortages were at their worst, it constituted a serious health hazard.” The afternoons were given over to games; these were important but did not dominate to the same extent as at other public schools.

Life at the school in general was harsh: the pupils endured a lack of privacy, corps drill during the First World War, labouring on local farms in 1918, and cruel discipline which often involved beatings with a ground-ash. Many of the “old boys” to whom Douglas spoke while researching Jardine’s time there recalled horrific tales with some embarrassment and lingering shock.

Many boys, especially younger pupils, struggled to cope with such a regime. Raikes at least had family with him; his brother Robert Berkley Raikes, two years his junior, also attended Winchester. Their father hoped that both would play cricket for his old university, Oxford. But it was not to be; Robert contracted meningitis and died in April 1919.

Sport was the area in which Raikes excelled. He represented Winchester at rackets (1920–21) and association football (1921); he also played Winchester College football (a code of football exclusive to Winchester and similar in some ways to rugby). But his main successes came in cricket.

Tom Raikes in 1921, his final year at Winchester (Image: Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of Winchester)

Raikes broke into the Winchester cricket team for the 1919 season, when he played alongside Jardine, the captain, and Claude Ashton, one of the most glamorous schoolboy cricketers of the time. Raikes’ first year in the team was a qualified success; he finished sixth in the batting averages with 197 runs at 19.70 and second in bowling with 15 wickets at 18.20, but was overshadowed by Jardine and Ashton. However, his presence in the first eleven guaranteed him a kind of celebrity at Winchester.

Jardine had left for Oxford University by 1920, and this was the year that Raikes came into his own as a cricketer. Alongside Claude Ashton, who had assumed the captaincy, Raikes was the main bowler in the team. The schools report in Wisden by E. B. Noel described him as “medium to medium-fast” and said that he possessed a good length, changed his pace effectively and produced “awkward” swing. The most important games were those against the leading public schools, and Raikes excelled in these: nine wickets in the win against Eton and five for 32 in a win over Harrow. He finished fourth in the school batting averages with 370 runs at 24.66 and top of the bowling with 54 wickets at 12.41. This was enough for him to be selected for representative schoolboy cricket: he played for “The Rest” against “Lord’s Schools” (i.e. those schools which played matches at Lord’s against those which did not) at the end of term. He also made his debut for Norfolk, following in the footsteps of his father and uncle; over the next four seasons, he played 25 times for the county, taking 42 wickets at 22.64.

Raikes was appointed as the captain of Winchester for 1921, and was fairly successful although the team was not the strongest. The Wisden report by E. B. Noel and F. B. Wilson said of him: “Raikes, the captain, was a thoroughly good schoolboy bowler and useful batsman. He is over medium-pace and as a whole he bowls a good length and he has a nasty swerve.” His best performance was against Charterhouse when he scored 93 runs and took eight wickets for 17; all eight wickets were taking without conceding a single run. He did little in Winchester’s biggest game, against Eton, although he did watch his opening batter J. L. Guise score 278. Raikes was second in the school batting averages with 418 runs at 32.15 and headed the bowling with 60 wickets at 16.01. His performances earned him a place in the Lord’s schools matches again, and this time he was included in the second game, when the “Public Schools” played “The Army”, although he was unsuccessful in both.

By any standards, his school sporting career was a resounding success, and he seems to have taken a full part in Winchester life. Away from the playing field, he was part of the “Shakespeare Reading and Orpheus Glee United Society”, a group which performed dramatic readings. By the time he left school in 1921, he would have been expected to take his place in the world. But it never quite worked out like that.

Tom Raikes in 1922 when he was a freshman in the Oxford University team (Image: The Cricketer, 20 May 1922)

Later that year, Raikes followed Jardine to Oxford University. He entered Trinity College with a good cricketing reputation and was in the University team for four years. Yet he was never quite in the same league as his more famous contemporaries; he never came close to being as effective at a higher level with the bat and his bowling fell away after a promising start. But a large part of his decline seems to have arisen from the various temptations on offer at Oxford; while Jardine, for example, fully absorbed the spartan Winchester lifestyle and spent his whole life transmitting its ethos to everyone he met, Raikes went in the opposite direction.

Part of the problem may have been that he continued to be overshadowed on the cricket field. The Oxford team of 1922 included the future Test cricketers Jardine and Greville Stevens (who had appeared in the Gentlemen v Players match in 1919 while still at University College School). Another team-mate was R. C. Robertson-Glasgow, a good bowler who became far more famous as a cricket writer. But there was little doubt that Raikes would win his “Blue”, particularly after his performance in the Freshman’s Match, when he took five for five (and bowled 57 deliveries before conceding a run). This was followed by a first-class debut against Hampshire which produced a pair with the bat but six wickets with the ball.

His first year in the team was an undoubted success, albeit a low-key one. The report in Wisden said: “The one really hopeful feature of Oxford cricket was the bowling of T. B. Raikes, the Winchester freshman. His record … does not look very much on paper, but he did far better work than his figures would suggest, and once at least he had appalling luck in the matter or dropped catches.” The Oxford correspondent of The Cricketer agreed: “Raikes was an untiring bowler of real class, and he had length, devil, swing and spin, and was always dangerous.”

Unlike at Winchester, Raikes’ batting was inconsequential — in four years in the Oxford team, he averaged 12.88 in first-class cricket with a highest score of 44. But with the ball in 1922, he took 40 first-class wickets at 20.72; a more than respectable return for a man in his first year in the team. His best performance came in a losing cause in the most important match of all. Against Cambridge at Lord’s, he took three for 65. If this seems nothing out of the ordinary, he bowled 44 overs and these figures came out of a Cambridge total of 403 for four. Oxford lost the match by an innings and 100 runs, and Raikes was one of the few bright spots in such a devastating result. Wisden concluded: “All going well, he ought to be invaluable to Oxford for the next two or three years.”

Raikes in a posed shot from 1922 (Image: The Cricketer, 1 July 1922)

There was one incident involving Raikes that year which became legendary. Shortly before the University Match, Oxford were playing Surrey. The university had reached 221 for eight when Raikes came out to join R. C. Robertson-Glasgow. The pair had added four when Robertson-Glasgow drove the ball to long-on and took a run; having completed the first, he called the hesitant Raikes for a second. But when the batters had crossed, one of them — the contemporary report in The Times said Robertson-Glasgow, but the latter said in his autobiography that it was Raikes — changed his mind and turned back. The result was that both batters were running to the same end; both simultaneously realised what was happening and, to prevent it, both chose to reverse their direction at the same moment so that now they were both simultaneously running to the other end. Once more they both realised at the same time, and both changed direction, so that they were yet again heading in the same direction, to the amusement of the thoroughly entertained crowd. Ian Peebles, who was not at the game but knew many of those involved, wrote in The Guardian in 1979: “It was calculated that as though attached to each other by some spectral harness they traversed the pitch four times at the end of which all the stumps had been flattened by repeated attacks and most of the fielders by hysteria.” In Peebles’ version, one of the fielders had to replace one of the stumps in order to complete the run out.

Robertson-Glasgow told a slightly different tale (as related in a 2009 article on ESPNcricinfo by Martin Williamson). While the batters crossed and recrossed the pitch, the Surrey fielding had fallen apart; a poor throw from long-on was fumbled by mid-on, who dropped the ball again as both the bowler and wicket-keeper called for it. Mid-on eventually returned it to the bowler, but both batters were stood in that crease together; the bowler threw it to the wicket-keeper, Herbert Strudwick, who removed the bails. No-one was quite sure who was out, including the umpires who were practically doubled over with laughter, and Robertson-Glasgow recalled that Raikes prevented any discussion by giving himself out. According to Robertson-Glasgow’s autobiography, Raikes declared: “I’m going, I’ve got a beer waiting!” Other versions — such as that written by Peebles — suggest that the two men tossed a coin, but given what happened to Raikes over the following seasons, Robertson-Glasgow’s version has the ring of truth.

Although he remained in the Oxford team for 1923 and was appointed as the Honorary Secretary of the team, Raikes was less effective that year. Wisden said: “Raikes, who had been regarded as Oxford’s bowling hope, fell off sadly”. The Cricketer also noted his loss of form, which it hoped was temporary. He managed just 34 wickets at 30.70. The 1924 season was not much better: Wisden judged the Oxford bowling “second rate”, and said that “Raikes had one afternoon of marked success, but that was all.” The one success was a spectacular one, when he returned his best first-class figures, nine for 38, in a match against the Army. But he was dropped by Norfolk and did not play for the county after the University season ended. The Cricketer was more positive, suggesting that he was dangerous in helpful conditions. He took 37 first-class wickets at 25.32, and it may have been a minor consolation that he had his best season with the bat, averaging almost 20.

The Oxford team of 1924: Back row: K. G. Blalkie, H. W. F. Franklin, J. E. Frazer, G. E. B. Abell. Middle row: C. H. Taylor, T. B. Raikes, C. H. Knott, E. P. Hewetson, F. H. Barnard. Front row: E. H. Sinclair, J. L. Guise. (Image: The Cricketer Annual 1924–25)

But by this stage, something had gone wrong with his cricket. After making a poor start to the 1925 season, Raikes was dropped from the Oxford team. He took just 21 wickets at 23.57, and the Wisden report on Oxford’s season did not mention him. His final match was against H. D. G. Leveson-Gower’s XI in June, after which he disappeared from the cricket scene. The reason seems to have been connected to his fitness; the season review in The Cricketer said: “Raikes’ unfortunate lack of condition involved an irreparable loss to the side.” Many years later, in Raikes’ obituary, Wisden was more blunt: “He found the pleasure of life at Oxford too alluring, rapidly put on weight and was never again really fit enough for a first-class bowler.”

This loss of condition can be seen in the Oxford team photos, in which Raikes noticeably puts on weight with each passing year. There may also have been other off-field issues. The Cricketer suggested that he may have been disappointed to be passed over for the captaincy, which went to J. L. Guise, the former Winchester pupil, who was a year younger than Raikes. Reading between the lines, it looks as if he had expected to be appointed having held the role of Secretary in 1923 and again in 1924. But the author of the Cricketer article insisted that Raikes had been very loyal to Guise.

Raikes may have been bypassed owing to his decreasing form or his increasing weight, but other factors lurked in the background. Stories passed down through his family suggested that he spent much of his time at Oxford drinking and gambling, and quite possibly experiencing other temptations of the flesh. One mysterious episode took place while he was still at Oxford. In late 1924, he married a woman from Headington in Oxfordshire called Cicely Sides, the daughter of a bank manager. Earlier that year, she had been fined for obstructing Magdalen Street in Oxford with her car; Magdalen Street is very close to Trinity College. But this marriage, whatever lay behind it, did not last long; by early 1927, Cicely had divorced Raikes.

With the reverberations of a possibly scandalous marriage still echoing, it is hardly surprising that Raikes was not offered the captaincy, and lost his form. Perhaps Raikes’ lifestyle at Oxford was a reaction to the harshness of Winchester, or possibly connected to the death of his brother. But by mid-1925, he had entered dangerous territory. His Wisden obituary simply said: “On going down [from Oxford] he went abroad and played no more serious cricket.” But the truth was somewhat more complicated.

Raikes had mounting financial problems and at the end of July 1925, his bank forced him to close his account — which contained only 14 shillings — and return all unused cheques to them. On 8 August, Raikes went to “Your Motor Services” — a vehicle company which he had used previously and without incident in June 1925 — and requested the hire of a car for a week; he was told it required a £10 deposit and would cost £14 15s for the hire. He told them that he didn’t have the cash on him but wrote a cheque for £24 15s on a piece of paper, which was refused when the company tried to cash it. Given the correspondence with his bank, there was no way Raikes could have been unaware that the cheque could not be honoured. The company heard nothing more from him, but the car was soon discovered at Market Harborough, where it had been abandoned after an accident. On 28 September, Raikes was arrested as he was about to board a train in Oxford. Charged with attempting to use a fraudulent cheque, he was refused bail and held on remand.

Subsequently, he was charged with two more offences: possession of an automatic pistol and possession of seventeen rounds of ammunition, for which he had no licence; the pistol was discovered on him when he was arrested and the ammunition was in an attache case at his lodgings. He was fined £2 at the Police Court and his ammunition confiscated. He never offered an explanation for why he was carrying a pistol, but it was certainly an indication that all was not well.

When his case came to court at the London Sessions on 20 October, Raikes admitted trying to use a bad cheque, and his father offered to pay the company what they were owed; under this agreement, the case was dropped. Raikes was gently, even sympathetically, handled by the court, which expressed disapproval but clearly wanted to give him another chance. Such a course would not have been taken for anyone from a less privileged background; his father’s occupation as a barrister most likely helped in several ways.

Nevertheless, Raikes was effectively ruined in England. The story was widely reported in the press. The Daily Mirror even had the headline “Oxford Blue Guilty”. But part of the deal struck by Raikes’ father was that his son would be sent overseas, a common solution for wealthy families in dealing with sons who were in trouble. And so, in April 1926, Raikes departed England for Buenos Aires in Argentina, sailing on the Highland Piper. He spent the next 26 years working as a sheep farmer. But rather than live out his life quietly, the indications are that he continued to find problems.

In Argentina, he lived with his uncle, Arthur M. Raikes, and worked on the family sheep ranch. While there, he fell in love with his first cousin, Arthur’s daughter Naomi. They travelled to England and were married in 1930, and eventually had two children back in Argentina. But family stories indicate that Raikes was not particularly faithful and eventually the marriage broke down. His wife moved to Colombia and his children later went to public school in England.

Little else is known of Raikes’ life, because he subsequently stayed out of the public eye. We can fill in a few details from an obituary which appeared in The Wykehamist, Winchester College’s long-running magazine. He lived in Argentina until 1952, which was around the time he divorced Naomi Raikes, and lived in England for the rest of his life. In 1954, he married Nancy Lett (née Glendenning), which The Wykehamist incorrectly says was his second marriage rather than his third. That publication also said that the couple had a daughter, but this seems unlikely: Nancy Glendenning had been born in 1905 and would therefore have been 49 at the time of the marriage (which was her second). More problematic is that there are no registered births of anyone called Raikes whose mother’s maiden name was Glendenning (or Lett).

According to The Wykehamist, Raikes and his family lived in Warwick, where he worked for Nuffield Tractors. He took a new job with Vickers and moved to London around 1959, and following his retirement the family moved to Norfolk. Nancy Raikes died in 1979 (in Norfolk, so it appears that this marriage lasted longer than Raikes’ others). Incidentally, there is a record of a marriage in Surrey in 1960 between Thomas B. Raikes and Sylvia D. J. Byford, but there is no apparent connection with our Tom Raikes.

Raikes’ final years were spent living at The Anchorage in Rickinghall, Suffolk. The Wykehamist lists his interests as “cricket and all forms of sport. He was also a great reader.” He died suddenly in a Bury St Edmunds hospital on 2 March 1984. He was 81 years old and left an estate worth £10,338.

Neither his Wisden obituary nor his Wykehamist obituary made any mention of the scandal which ended his cricket career, and once the story disappeared from the newspapers, it was quietly forgotten. The Wisden obituary ended euphemistically: “He will be remembered as a bowler of great possibilities which he lacked the dedication to develop.”