Meeting 12 November - Well Played, Jeeves!

To mark the Centenary of the First World War, author and ex-Birmingham Post cricket correspondent Brian Halford will tell the story of The Real Jeeves, the young Goole cricketer Percy Jeeves. Plucked from country-house cricket in the Dales, the modest young Yorkshireman went on to outshine the greats of the Golden Age in just two seasons with Warwickshire - clean bowling Jack Hobbs, hitting Wilfred Rhodes for six and outclassing England captain Plum Warner. In September 1914 he bowled his adopted county to victory over champions Surrey. It was his 50th first-class match - and his last. Among the first to volunteer for the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Percy was killed, vanished without trace, at High Wood during the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. But  his name lives on forever in the works of ardent cricket-lover PG Wodehouse. So impressed was Wodehouse by Percy's immaculate conduct and appearance during a match at Cheltenham in 1913 that he noted the name. And three years later, when he created a character who shared those very attributes, 'Jeeves' - Bertie Wooster's infallible 'gentleman's personal gentleman' was born.

Brian Halford's The Real Jeeves was shortlisted for the Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year Award 2014.

"One of the finest cricket biographies I have ever read." David Warner, Yorkshire CCC website

"A wonderful new book... Halford recounts magnificently - and with aching poignancy - the terrible fate suffered by Jeeves and his comrades in the trenches." Chris Waters, Yorkshire Post

"... an eye-opening book." Ashley Giles

"This true-life story is as memorable - and surely more poignant - than any of [P G Wodehouse's] much-loved creations." Simon Briggs, The Telegraph

"The Real Jeeves: I couldn't recommend it more." George Dobell, ESPN CricInfo

Venue: Brewery Bar, King William IV, Hallgate, Cottingham HU16 4BD

Prize raffle - £2/ticket. Win free tickets to watch Yorkshire CCC at Headingley in 2015 - plus a host of other prizes.

 

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Guests £5 - deductible from annual membership.

Email: ercsoc@gmail.com

Telephone: Maggie Sumner (01482 861848) or Michael Hardwick (01482 861228)

FUTURE MEETINGS
10 December - Dennis Amiss, England and Warwickshire opener

2015
14 January - Dave Callaghan, the Official Voice of Yorkshire Cricket, 'My Championship Year'
11 February - Chris Watts & Steve Richardson, ECB Anti-Corruption Unit
11 March - Richard Blakey, Yorkshire & England wicket-keeper/batsman