Next Tuesday, the 5th April, former Middlesex and England off-spinning all-rounder Fred Titmus, will be laid to rest at West Herts Crematorium, Garston, nr Watford.
Ever since I first played (as Player/Coach) at Northerns-Goodwood CC in Cape Town in 1984-5, I became more interested in Fred Titmus’s career, because he had previously held the position, and the Club President and Chairman spoke glowingly of Fred’s contribution to the club, and Cricket in general in the Northern Suburbs of the Western Cape. My father, who grew up as a Middlesex supporter with Denis Compton as his sporting hero, often spoke about Titmus, and his courage in recovering from a nasty accident when losing his toes on one foot during an England Tour to West Indies. There is no doubt he was a fine cricketer.
As I journeyed through my life in Cricket, I came to know Fred a little. He was an England Selector, and as a result of Mickey Stewart’s invitation, Fred became a coach on Mickey’s Development of Excellence Programmes at Lilleshall for young English cricketers, where I was able to enjoy his company and humour on several occasions. Cricket has lost a good man.
Former England bowler Mike Selvey, penned a delightful, intimate tribute to his playing mentor at Middlesex, in his current capacity as The Guardian’s Cricket correspondent, highlighting the skill and wisdom of arguably Middlesex’s greatest ever cricketer:
The Middlesex off-spinner was an astonishing player who excelled for five decades and was my mentor.
The news came, kindly and as I might have expected, from JT – John Murray – the other half of the cockney duo who were inextricably linked on the field for much of the career of Fred Titmus. Fred had been ill for a considerable time, cared for in a home, an Alzheimer’s victim and a shell of the chirpy genius he had once been. But it was pneumonia that did for him in the end. JT wanted me to know before I heard the news elsewhere. Fred and I were closer during my playing days than many people, JT even, knew.
In his passing at the age of 78 goes a remarkable cricketer, one who played and excelled at first-class and international level in five decades from his first Middlesex match, on the Recreation Ground during the Bath Festival of 1949, when, as a teenager, he played alongside, among others, Gubby Allen and Horace Brearley, to his last when he toddled into the Lord’s dressing room one August day in 1982 for a pipe, a cuppa and a natter, and was persuaded by Horace’s son, Mike, to play against Surrey on a pitch that looked as if it might take spin, joining as he did Phil Edmonds and John Emburey. He took nought for 49 and three for 43 in Middlesex’s win and was a couple of months shy of his 50th birthday.
Last October, after watching Graeme Swann produce some scintillating bowling from the same Pavilion End at Lord’s that was Fred’s stamping ground, I penned a piece in which I wondered whether Swann might just be a better bowler. Did I really mean it? Was I being seduced by the moment? No matter, it was only a day or so before an email dropped from JT who, having seen the piece and enjoyed it, wanted to take issue with my conclusion.
Imagine, he said, if Fred had had the benefit of the Umpire Decision Review System that has been of such benefit to Swann and other spinners. Did I not remember how during his Test career he was swept to distraction at times, particularly by Australians who did so secure in the knowledge that Fred’s trademark armball – a genuine swinger, a delivery that started outside leg-stump so that the batsman, suspected he had strayed down there (as if) and had begun the process of sweeping even as the ball swung down the line of the stumps and caught them in front mid-stroke – would not be allowed to dismiss them? The ball had scarcely left his hand on some occasions and it seemed as if JT was already appealing. Rarely was he as angry at the injustice as he was in Australia.
His record is astounding. 173,489 times he waddled up on his 10-to-2 feet and he took 2,830 wickets, 153 of them in 53 Tests. There were runs, too, getting on for 22,000 of them, and, although generally late middle order, he opened the batting for England on six occasions. He scored six hundreds, not enough for a player of his ability, the last of them, in 1976, completed against Warwickshire while I was at the crease. I was considerably more excited by it than he was.
Fred was my mentor, a very special person in my career. He knew the game, of course he did, but more than that he knew my game. Once, when I was going through a bad trot, not helped by a niggle that I was trying to hide, he took umbrage with the club who, meaning well, had asked a variety of people to have a look. “Never do that again,” he said. “It’s me who knows what he does, not them.” I valued that support. The following day he gave me some early tuition and I took six wickets. His great strength for me was an ability to simplify the game (“simple game made difficult by people”) and to do so in such a way that one thought that the ideas that he implanted were from within.
He talked of batsmen, how to look for weaknesses, watch for the way a new player walked out, how he carried himself, how he held the bat, what was his stature: all the fundamental things that added up to a philosophy. It is easy to say that you cannot buy that sort of tutelage but, when I went to Glamorgan as captain, I managed to persuade the club to hire Fred for two days of tutorials for the spin bowlers in the club. He left with them in awe.
For all that, I could rarely get a drink out of him even during one of our cricket-talking sessions at some county hotel or other. “Want a drink?” “Thanks Fred, I’ll have a pint.” “You decide the drink, I’ll decide the quantity.” Some of us remembered that a couple of weeks ago at a lunch at Lord’s in honour of the long-serving, wonderful coach Don Bennett. We toasted Fred as an absent friend that day. We shall be toasting him again rather sooner than we had perhaps imagined. (Mike Selvey 23rd March 2011.)
Fred enjoyed a remarkable cricketing life as a professional, in a career which spanned five different decades as a player.
I use the term ‘Player’, because Fred played his early Cricket in the era of ‘Gentlemen’ and ‘Players’. For those unfamiliar with the distinction, it was a period which reflected the class structure of Britain in the 1950’s, and the previous cricketing eras. Different dressing rooms were used by the Gentlemen (Amateurs) and the Players (Professionals), and each group took the field via different entrances. Travelling arrangements to and fro matches were representative of the class distinction, and accommodation likewise.
Fred Titmus, and his like, were deemed to be a ‘worker’ and not ‘officer class’, and experienced second-class treatment. That is until, the meritocracy of sport (and one of the many reasons I love it) took over between the two wickets pitched at each end of the cut strip, 22 yards apart. This was ‘the space’ where artists and artisans could do battle irrespective of their background and upbringing.
To think that Len Hutton became the first ‘Player’ (Professional) to Captain England )in 1952) highlights how difficult it was for bulk of the population to rise to the top in English Cricket.
In David Kynaston’s excellent book ‘Family Britain: 1951-57’, an example of the class-distinction of the era is revealed by the true story of a tannoy announcement during a match at Lord’s which informed the crowd as a young Middlesex pro made his way to the middle:
‘‘Ladies and Gentlemen, a correction to your scorecards. For ‘FJ Titmus, please read ‘Titmus F.J’ ’’
How times have changed.
Fred lived through a period of considerable social evolution in Britain, and what is more, played his part in bringing respect and gravitas to the common man. His ‘common’ touch put people at ease, and his desire to share his knowledge about the game he loved to those with keen ears, knew no bounds.
It would be a fitting tribute to a man who graced Lord’s Cricket Ground for so long (both with Middlesex and England) to have a part of the ground named in his honour. ‘The Home of Cricket’ has traditionally honoured the most prominent ‘Gentlemen’: Grace Harris, Warner; Allen etc.
In post-modern society, wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of the best ‘Players’ were to be honoured in similar fashion?
