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First published in Great Britain in 1986 by Kingswood Press, Tadworth
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Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to the Verity family for their unstinting aid in producing this first full-length biography of a revered cricketer and patriot. It is largely because of the kindness and generosity of Miss Grace Verity, of Rawdon, Yorkshire, and Mr Douglas Verity, of Pwllheli, Gwynedd, North Wales, that I have been able to retrace the climb to greatness of their illustrious brother and father. The wealth of material placed at my disposal included a revealing memoir written by the late Hedley Verity senior. From jottings of a proud father I was given many insights into the disciplines which were to serve England and Yorkshire so well.
The volume of correspondence from Verity’s contemporaries – cricketers and supporters – at home and overseas has also provided heartening proof of the worthiness of the project. I must, especially, express my indebtedness to Bill Bowes, Verity’s close friend and bowling partner in Yorkshire’s years of triumph in the early 1930s; Sir Leonard Hutton, Norman Yardley, Jim Kilburn, Hugh Bartlett and George Cox (Sussex); and Leslie Ames (Kent). In Gloucestershire Charles Barnett has recalled the benefits of his Test apprenticeship under Verity’s guidance. Among Verity’s England captains, R.E.S. Wyatt and Sir George Allen made handsome contributions. Cricket has mourned the deaths in recent times of these personalities, but their vivid recollections continue to enhance my work.
From Australia my postbag has included the reminiscences of former Test rivals W.J. O’Reilly, W.A. Brown, L.S. Darling, L.P.J. O’Brien and K.E. Rigg, all of whom remembered the combative qualities of Verity and the skills of a cricketer who gained their enduring respect. Chris Harte and Rex Harcourt were other most helpful correspondents.
The late John Kay, the former Lancashire cricket correspondent, with whose family Verity stayed during a crucial period as professional at Middleton, the Central Lancashire League club, also rendered important assistance with a shrewd assessment of his old team-mate and friend. Tony Woodhouse, the Yorkshire cricket historian, has given valued help as have Mrs Edith Winfield, Miss Mary Winfield and Mr Jack Lees, of Rawdon.
I must also thank, most sincerely, Sir Donald Bradman, for contributing a foreword, and acknowledge the courteous assistance of the British Newspaper Library staff at Colindale, London. Other acknowledgements are due to the Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Lieutenant-Colonel D.J. Bottomley, the curator of the Green Howards Regimental Museum at Richmond, North Yorkshire. He has provided much valuable material on Verity’s wartime service and allowed me to quote from the book, The Story of the Green Howards: 1939–1945 by Captain W.A.T. Synge. Other contributors include Verity’s hosts in Northern Ireland where the 1st Battalion of the Green Howards was stationed in 1941. Mr J. Walsh and Mr F. Walsh, now living in Zimbabwe and Newfoundland, Mr V. Craig, of Strabane, and Mrs E. Wilson, of Omagh, have furnished telling observations on the character of their Yorkshire guest. Repeated thanks are extended to Douglas Verity. All the illustrations, except where stated, are from his personal archives.
I take considerable pride in the reissue of my book, which was a landmark in my writing career and received the acknowledgement of the Cricket Society’s Jubilee Literary Award in 1986. It will provide a timely reminder of the immensity of Verity’s achievements. There is food for thought for newcomers to the work, and for others the gain of renewed enjoyment the second time round. Sadly, I have to record the death of a dear friend and valued collaborator. Grace Verity, Hedley’s elder sister, died at the age of 89 in March 1997.
Two years ago, in the Italian springtime, I fulfilled a long-standing ambition to visit Verity’s grave. As his biographer, I felt it sealed a deep friendship over many years with the Verity family. Hedley Verity is buried, along with over 700 servicemen, in the immaculate military cemetery at Caserta, near Naples.
Mary Winfield, Verity’s niece, was another earlier visitor to Caserta. She remembered the appearance of an English garden in Italy: ‘My visit gave me an insight through personal experience of regret. My uncle was one of so many people who died, and yet my generation have not grasped how many; but I have, as a result of the fact that Hedley was sufficiently special for people so many years later still to care.’
Mary echoed my own thoughts as I lingered by the graveside on a lovely afternoon. As I made my own dedication in the cemetery register, another entry caught my eye. The tribute had been penned by a North Yorkshireman. It read: ‘Thanks for looking after our men, especially Hedley Verity.’
Alan Hill
Lindfield, Sussex
March 2000
Live man and dead
Being each unique
(Their pain and glory),
Yet some will have left
By force or freak
To us the bereft
Some richer story;
Their say being said,
They still can speak
Words more unique,
More live, less dead.
Louis MacNeice
APPENDICES
APPENDIX ONE
Assessments of Captains and Others
Assessments of Captains
R.E.S. WYATT: ‘Hedley Verity was an ideal cricketer who always played the game in the spirit in which it was originally intended it should be played. He was a keen student of theory and practice and never ceased to try, whatever the state of the game. He had a fine control of length and direction, with the ability to make the ball lift which proved to be a great asset on all wickets. Hedley was an observant cricketer. As his captain in many matches I felt it was always in my interests to have his views.’
G.O. ALLEN: ‘Hedley was a splendid man in every way and I became very fond of him. He had a good cricket brain, not only with regard to his own bowling, but in terms of the game as a whole and I respected his judgement. He had a lovely high action. He did not spin the ball an enormous amount but he turned it enough to get wickets because of his accuracy and variation of pace. There have not been many eras in which he would not have been first choice as England’s slow left-arm bowler.’
D.R. JARDINE: ‘He has been perpetually compared with the past Yorkshire masters, Peate, Peel and Rhodes. Without being in a position to speak from personal experience of two of these three bowlers I should require a lot of convincing before awarding the palm to any of them in preference to Verity. I venture to doubt whether any other bowler of his type has proved such a master on all wickets.’
BRIAN SELLERS: ‘His character and disposition never changed amid all his triumphs; he just remained Hedley Verity. He was an ideal fellow and a charming personality. His bowling action indicated his character: no fuss, hurry or rush. He worked hard all day with steadiness and determination.’
WALTER HAMMOND: ‘Now hostility is not at all the same thing as, say, “bodyline”. It marked Verity’s bowling – he talked with his fingers – and he was a man who bowled as if in a mental abstraction, the batsman being just the obstacle. He had that quality which never lets a batsman rest, never allows him an easy stroke, pinches him for foot space, makes him uneasy to step out in case he is stumped, and haunts him with the feeling that he is going to be bowled round the legs by something he tries to ignore altogether.’
Tributes from Other Contemporaries
FREDDIE BROWN: ‘On a wet, turning wicket he was almost unplayable. He bowled from such a height and he really did push the ball along and made it bite. But one of his greatest assets was that lovely run-up – fairly long for a slow left-arm bowler. When he got to the wicket he was all in flow; his line and length was awfully good and he kept most batsmen pretty quiet.’
LES AMES: ‘He had the most beautiful delivery. He trotted up to the wicket and over came his left arm in perfect rhythm. He never really bowled a bad ball. There were a few half-volleys but I cannot remember in any Test match seeing him bowl a long hop. All batsmen respected Hedley and feared him if the ball was going to turn. As an orthodox spinner he was in a class of his own. No other left-hander, in my time, came near him.’
SIR LEONARD HUTTON: ‘You could run down the wicket to Rhodes and some people did. But Hedley was a quicker bowler and he was difficult to knock off his length. Patsy Hendren once told me that he found batting against Hedley harder than against Wilfred. If a fellow started hitting Hedley he wouldn’t bowl short. He’d still “give him” the ball, he would still pitch it up. Hedley did not spin the ball as much in the late 1930s as he did earlier. Mind you, he did a lot of bowling and he always retained his accuracy. You could field close to the wicket and feel safe.’
SIR PELHAM WARNER: ‘Verity dismissed Bradman more frequently than any other English bowler. He was always planning and thinking. He used his brains as well as his fingers, and was ever ready to discuss how and why to bowl to various batsmen and the placing and necessary alterations to the field under varying conditions. As a man he was absolutely first class, quiet and gentle, with a very nice smile. He was a rare companion on tour abroad, and always a happy influence.’
HERBERT SUTCLIFFE: ‘He lived a grand life, always playing the game in a dignified sense. By his example, personality and demeanour, he left a deep impression on the minds of those fortunate to know him. Like many Yorkshiremen, Hedley, when once he had made up his mind to do something, would leave no stone unturned until his ambition was achieved.’
. . . And in Australia
SIR DONALD BRADMAN: ‘Undoubtedly he was one of the greatest slow left-handed spinners of all time. His record testifies to that. No Australian left-hander of that type was Verity’s equal and of the Englishmen I saw, White, Rhodes and Underwood, there is no doubt that Hedley was as good or better than the others. His run to the wicket was amiable and just long enough to get him into a perfect delivery position. His control of length and flight was immaculate. He had a placid temperament and was a fine sportsman with none of the tantrums one sometimes sees from others.’
BILL O’REILLY: ‘His strength was his mechanical accuracy and ability to bowl directly at the middle and leg stumps all day long if need be. He never thought a great deal of a bowler who sacrificed accuracy for experimental purposes. Indeed he despised him as I did too. All Australians admired Verity immensely as a fully involved opponent demanding careful attention at all times.’
LEN DARLING: ‘Verity was one of England’s really great bowlers before the Second World War. I was one of his regular “rabbits”. He took my wicket six times in the 12 knocks I had in Tests against England. I can honestly say that prior to Hedley, and even after him, I had not had any great difficulty with left-arm bowlers, or with any spin bowlers. However, his accuracy, persistence and general mixture of flight, spin and guile often proved too much for my batting. I played too many strokes so often at the wrong ball.’
LEO O’BRIEN: ‘He had a high action with skilful variations of pace and spin – never far away from a good length, with a well-disguised fast ball which he used sensibly and sparingly. He would have been an automatic selection in most, if not all, Test teams from any country since 1930.’
BILL BROWN: ‘Where he really was supreme, in my opinion, was on a wet or wearing wicket. He usually bowled at exactly the right pace to extract the utmost from the wicket. On a wet wicket, at Lord’s in 1934, he bowled flatter and faster, not giving the batsman any time to change his shot. On a wearing wicket or where a spot appeared he would never leave the damaged bit alone, and adjusted his pace accordingly. Hedley was always a gentleman on the field, a most respected and admired opponent. He was sadly missed in post-war cricket.’
APPENDIX TWO
Hedley Verity in First-Class Cricket
(Compiled by Roy D. Wilkinson and L.F. Hancock)
All First-Class Matches
Overseas Tours
1932–33 MCC to Australia and New Zealand
1933–34 MCC to India and Ceylon
1935–36 Yorkshire to Jamaica
1936–37 MCC to Australia and New Zealand
1938–39 MCC to South Africa
All First-Class Matches for Yorkshire
County Championship Matches
Wicket Analysis – All First-Class Matches
Collaborators with Verity in All First-Class Matches for Yorkshire
Arthur Wood, who kept wicket for Yorkshire in 222 consecutive championship matches between 1928 and 1935, and Arthur Mitchell were Verity’s key fielding accomplices. They assisted in 346 dismissals in all first-class games. The best Wood–Verity season was in 1933 when the Yorkshire wicket-keeper took 15 catches and stumped 18 opponents off Verity’s bowling. Mitchell’s best year was 1936 when he took 25 catches. In seven other seasons he took between 16 and 19 catches.
Catches
A. Mitchell 160; A.B. Sellers 100; C. Turner 72; A. Wood 67; H. Sutcliffe 64; G.G. Macaulay 50; W. Barber 48; E.P. Robinson 41; L Hutton 38; W.E. Bowes 37; M. Leyland 35; T.F. Smailes 32; P. Holmes 21; N.W.D. Yardley 17; F.E. Greenwood 15; E. Robinson 11; A.C. Rhodes 10; Substitute 10; F. Dennis 8; H. Fisher 8; A.T. Barber 5; P.A. Gibb 5; H. Crick 3; K.R. Davidson 3; E. Oldroyd 2; C.H. Hall 1; H. Halliday 1; A. Hamer 1; H.S. Hargreaves 1; T.A. Jacques 1; W. Rhodes 1; F. Wilkinson 1.
Stumpings
A. Wood 119; K. Fiddling 2; P.A. Gibb 1.
Positions in Bowling Averages (All First-Class Matches) 1930–39
Seventeen Wickets in a Match (1)
Fifteen Wickets in a Match (4)
Fourteen Wickets in a Match (6)
Thirteen Wickets in a Match (7)
Twelve Wickets in a Match (7)
Eleven Wickets in a Match (14)
Ten Wickets in an Innings (2)
Nine Wickets in an Innings (7)
Eight Wickets in an Innings (13)
Seven Wickets in an Innings (34)
The Verity/Bowes Partnership in The County Championship
Bowling Partnership with Bowes (County Championship)
Bowling Partnership with Bowes (All Yorkshire Matches)
Figure in brackets after bowler’s name indicates positions in Yorkshire bowling averages. Acknowledgements to Mr E.L. Roberts and Mr J.M. Kilburn.
Test Matches
Australia
All Test Matches v Australia
New Zealand
All Test Matches v New Zealand
South Africa
All Test Matches v South Africa
India
All Test Matches v India
West Indies
By County
Bibliography
Principal sources:
Barker, Ralph, Ten Great Bowlers (Chatto & Windus, 1967)
Bowes, W.E., Express Deliveries (Stanley Paul, 1949)
Cardus, Neville, Good Days (Hart-Davis, 1948), Australian Summer (Hart-Davis, 1949), Roses Matches, 1919–39 (Souvenir, 1982)
Fender, P.G.H., Kissing the Rod (Methuen, 1934)
Jardine, D.R., Ashes and Dust (Hutchinson, 1934), In Quest of the Ashes: MCC in Australia, 1932–33 (Hutchinson, 1934)
Kay, John, Cricket in the Leagues (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970), Cricket Heroes (Phoenix House, 1959)
Kilburn, J.M., with Nash, J.H., History of Yorkshire County Cricket, 1924–49 (Yorkshire CCC, 1950), Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (various years)
Yardley, N.W.D., Cricket Campaigns (Stanley Paul, 1950)
Other books consulted:
Carew, Dudley, To the Wicket (Chapman & Hall, 1950)
Dalby, Ken, White is the Rose: County Cricket at Headingley, 1891–1980 (1980), Headingley Test Cricket, 1899–1975 (Olicana Books, 1976)
Davis, Sam, Hedley Verity: Prince with a Piece of Leather (Epworth, 1952)
Fingleton, J.H., Cricket Crisis (Cassell, 1947)
Hutton, Sir Leonard, Fifty Years in Cricket (Stanley Paul, 1984)
Kilburn, J.M., Yorkshire (Convoy, 1950)
Pollock, William, So this is Australia (Arthur Barker, 1937)
Prittie, T.C.F., Cricket North and South (Sportsman’s Book Club, 1955)
Roberts, E.L., Hedley Verity: Yorkshire and England, 1930–39 (E.F. Hudson, 1943)
Robertson-Glasgow, R.C., Forty-six Not Out (Hollis & Carter, 1948)
Sanyal, S., Forty Years of Test Cricket: India v England (Thomson, India, 1974)
Sutcliffe, Herbert, For England and Yorkshire (Edward Arnold, 1935)
Swanton, E.W., Sort of Cricket Person (Collins, 1972)
Thomas, Peter, Yorkshire Cricketers: 1839–1939 (Derek Hodgson, 1973)
Verity, Hedley, Bowling ’em Out (Hutchinson, 1936)
Wakley, B.J., Bradman the Great (Mainstream, 1999)
Wyatt, R.E.S., Three Straight Sticks (Stanley Paul, 1951)
Newspaper reports from the Leeds Mercury, Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post and Manchester Guardian have formed the nucleus of contemporary printed sources. The quotation from ‘Visitations’ by Louis MacNeice, published in Collected Poems, is reproduced by kind permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.
Foreword
A Tribute by Sir Donald Bradman, A.C.
As I write these words it is hard to comprehend that over 40 years have passed since Hedley Verity lost his life in the service of his country in the Second World War.
In Wisden’s Almanack for 1944 there is a tribute to his career but I am pleased to learn that Mr Alan Hill has now produced, at much greater length than Wisden’s space would allow, a biography worthy of the life and career of this great cricketer.
My first tour of England was in 1930 when I played against Yorkshire twice but Hedley Verity was not chosen in either match (that was his first year with the County 1st XI) probably because the legendary Wilfred Rhodes was still on deck.
But from then on, covering the next four Test series between England and Australia, we were great rivals and I grew more and more to respect him both as a gentleman and a player.
One of the great fascinations of cricket is that its statistics, if taken over a sufficiently long period, can give proof of a player’s ability, not only as an individual but also in comparison with players of other eras. I don’t intend to quote them here to any extent because they are adequately set out elsewhere, but would point out how consistently Hedley performed throughout his ten-year period in first-class cricket. In fact his county record was simply phenomenal.
After the first season (when he didn’t play many matches) Hedley took over 100 wickets in the county championship in every year except 1934 at a cost of a mere 13.2 runs per wicket.
By a strange coincidence, that same year, 1934, saw his greatest performance when he took 14 wickets in one day at Lord’s in a Test against Australia, the only cricketer ever to take 14 Test scalps in a day.
Another marvellous achievement was his ten wickets for ten runs off 19.4 overs against Nottinghamshire in 1932 – almost unbelievable under any conditions.
Yorkshiremen of bygone days may vote for Wilfred Rhodes as the greatest ever amongst the slow left-hand spinners. And they can produce impressive evidence thanks in part to the longevity of his career.
I played against Wilfred in his very last first-class match, when he was clearly past his prime, and even then one had to be very watchful against his lovely curving sinuous flight.
Verity was slightly faster than Wilfred – delivered the ball more over the top. In fact he was about midway in pace between Rhodes and Derek Underwood.
His ideal physique, his lovely economical, lazy run-up, were co-ordinated to put him in a perfect delivery position with a superb command of length and direction.
As a fieldsman he was extremely efficient and with the bat he achieved the role of opening for England, and did so with distinction in a style not unlike Herbert Sutcliffe.
But more than his cricketing skill was his sportsmanship and manly bearing under all circumstances. I never once heard him complain or offer a criticism and his acceptance of umpiring decisions was an example which many modern players could well emulate.
His whole career exemplified all that was best about cricket and I deem it an honour and privilege to have been on stage with him in those golden days of the 1930s.
Sir Donald Bradman, A.C.
1985
Contents
Foreword by Sir Donald Bradman, A.C.
Acknowledgements
ONE A Boy of Headingley
TWO Winning Approval in Lancashire
THREE The Weight of a Legacy
FOUR An ‘Avalanche from Heaven’
FIVE Letters from a Famous Son
SIX Verity and Jardine – A Resolute Unity
SEVEN The Good Companions
EIGHT Mastery at Lord’s
NINE The White Rose Blooms
TEN Misadventure at Melbourne
ELEVEN Dominant in a Batting Era
TWELVE Finale at Hove
THIRTEEN The Patriot Goes to War
FOURTEEN Valour on a Sicilian Plain
FIFTEEN Appreciation of his Craft
Appendix One Assessments of Captains and Others
Appendix Two Hedley Verity in First-Class Cricket
Bibliography
To Grace and Douglas, my kindly allies, and Betty, who knows the worth of a good Yorkshireman.
Portrait of a Cricketer
ONE
A Boy of Headingley
‘I have bred a better man than myself.’
– Hedley Verity senior
‘You’ll never rear him lass, it’s a pity it is a lad,’ was the mournful cry at the birth of a great cricketer. There was quite a flutter in the family circle when Hedley Verity was born at Welton Grove, Headingley, little more than a long throw from the famous Leeds Test ground, on 18 May 1905. The despairing voice was that of the baby’s maternal grandmother who was hugely upset because her own two sons had died in their infancy. Hedley was the only boy in his mother’s family and the first since his father on the other side. It was hardly surprising that his arrival created such a fuss and jangled the nerves of a distraught grandmother.
Hedley, the eldest of the family, was joined two years later by a sister, Grace, with whom he enjoyed a happy and frolicsome childhood. Edith, always regarded as the ‘kid’ sister, was born nine years later and she was only 12 years old when she acted as bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding in March 1929. The bond between Hedley and his father was always strong and it blossomed into a comradeship of rare serenity. ‘Hedley could talk to his father in a way that many children find difficult,’ said one friend of the family.
Hedley Verity senior, a modest cricketer in the local sphere, was a coal merchant, a lay preacher and a chairman of the urban district council. He brought up his son with discipline, with tact, and with a great desire that one day his boy would make his mark in life. Hedley amply repaid his father’s trust. How many fathers can say of their sons, with the sure knowledge that there can be no denial and no false pride, that ‘I have bred a better man than myself’? That was the tribute Mr Verity paid his son when Hedley was acclaimed an England cricketer.
Hedley Verity did survive, despite the fears of his grandmother, to reach a glorious if sadly curtailed manhood. Wilfred Rhodes, as his exacting mentor, was won over by the boy’s diligence. Yorkshire and even, implausibly, Lancashire where Verity honed his bowling craft in league cricket, had reason to be glad that he defied the birthday prophecy. The young Hedley flourished amid the zealous care and love of strict but devoted parents. The delightful comment of a Rawdon neighbour, soon after the family had moved from Headingley via the industrial suburb of Armley to the Airedale village, exemplifies their affection. He called at the Verity home, appraised the robust four-year-old boy looking on shyly behind his mother, and said: ‘My word, missis, it’s good to tell that lad’s been brought up in the country.’ Hedley’s father, when told of the incident, replied: ‘My, that speaks well for the healthy properties of the air at Armley.’
Yet, as always, there are pitfalls even for healthy children. A few days after the Rawdon man’s compliment Hedley was close to suffering serious injuries. The boy next door had received money for running an errand. Hedley joined him as they raced to the nearest shop. The pennies were quickly spent on a bundle of fireworks. These were duly shared with Hedley with near disastrous consequences. By some mischance they burst into a blaze, severely burned his hand, and set fire to his clothes. Fortunately for Hedley a woman heard his screams and dashed to his aid to put out the flames. Another neighbour ran home for ointment and bandages. There were anxious discussions as to the identity of the boy among the villagers who quickly gathered round the shocked Hedley. The Veritys, as newcomers, were still unknown in Rawdon.
Meanwhile, at home, Mrs Verity glanced up from her household chores to discover that Hedley was missing. She set out to trace him and found the boy still screaming in a circle of sympathetic neighbours. He was taken home and, in his father’s words, ‘for many days suffered painful reminders that it is dangerous to play with fire’. The shock waves succeeding the accident very nearly cost Mrs Verity her life. She did not spare herself in nursing the boy back to health. So untiring was she in her ministrations that she collapsed one night. The doctor was hurriedly called and for a few days her life hung in the balance.
The distressing episode may have revived lingering memories of another more destructive fire for Hedley’s parents.
The pioneering spirit of adventure, which was a marked characteristic of the Veritys and was to have tragic consequences, carried Verity senior’s own father to North America in the 1880s. David Verity could not persuade his wife and their four young children to accompany him on a journey fraught with perils in the primitive travel conditions of that time. There were many enthusiastic letters, including overtures to arrange a sea passage, and money from the exiled father to help soften the blow of separation. Then suddenly the correspondence ceased. The lack of news was worrying but it did not at first cause great concern, for it was known that David Verity had moved to a new area in either Canada or the United States. It was only gradually revealed that he had probably died along with many other unidentified men in a forest fire. Exhaustive inquiries failed to confirm his death, but these were days of rudimentary communications and elusive travellers and the bereaved family had finally to accept that their father was lost beyond recall.
It is a sad feature of the Verity saga that three generations of the family were left fatherless. David’s son, Hedley, was the first of the trio. Sixty years after his own father’s death, Hedley senior witnessed the plight of his son’s children, Wilfred and Douglas, after the death of their father in Italy in 1943, and there was yet another sickening blow for the family in 1975 when Wilfred himself was killed by a runaway cattle trailer while walking with his young son Hedley near their home at Otley. He was aged 43 and left a widow and one other child, Amy. The seven-year-old Hedley suffered a fractured skull in the accident, but he has recovered to become a quiet, thoughtful helpmate to his mother. The evidence today is of a charming, unembittered family. The shadows of their tragedies rest lightly upon them. Misfortune has brought strength and forged close ties.
Bravery in adversity has become almost a cliché of a storyteller; but it is especially true of the steadfast Veritys. Hedley Verity senior and his two sisters Mary and Elizabeth (the other girl, Jessie, was cared for by an aunt and uncle) were left to fend for themselves when their mother died. They set up home in a little house at Meanwood, not far from the later family address at Headingley.
The house at Meanwood was probably his first married home, too. In July 1903, Hedley senior married Edith Elwick, a Sunday school teacher who as the eldest of the family had spent many of her teenage years looking after her two young sisters and caring for her father, a master plumber, when he became an invalid during the later years of his life. The newly married pair were in their late twenties and ideally matched after the responsibilities of their youth.
Mr Verity must have been a tenacious, exceptional man, inching his way to prosperity through a mixture of jobs. His daughter, Grace, says he drove one of the first tramcars in Leeds before starting in the coal trade with the Armley and Wortley Coal Company.
Edith Verity was as strong a character as her husband and members of the Verity family consider that Hedley junior inherited his resourcefulness and dedication from her just as much as from his father. She was, to quote her surviving grandson, Douglas, ‘the steel of the family. She was only five feet nothing, but she had an inner core of determination.’
Grace Verity relates: ‘Mother was fiercely loyal to the family and protective against all comers. No sacrifice was too great to make for us, or the grandchildren later. She’d go without things herself to see that we were all right. As long as she had something to give, Mother was happy.’
Mrs Verity was, however, reluctant to make the move away from her friends at Armley and Headingley to the rural isolation of Rawdon, seven miles west of Leeds. Mr Verity had taken over one of his company’s agencies at Rawdon. His company later provided him with coal supplies when he started his own business.
The little township on the road to the moors must have seemed awesomely distant in 1910, the year of the coronation of King George V. The journey from Leeds to Rawdon involved a rib-shaking ride by tramcar lasting over half an hour. There were no buses to the neighbouring towns of Harrogate, Ilkley, Otley and Bradford, and the nearest railway station was at Apperley Bridge, a mile and a half away from the Veritys’ new home at Sefton House situated at the now busy junction of the Leeds and Harrogate roads.
The Veritys’ friends at first considered the move a reckless venture. Then, as time went by and the exiles did not return, they came out from the smoke and grime of Leeds and reversed their verdict. They thought it was a splendid idea to spend a weekend in the country.
‘Singularly beautiful for situation is Rawdon,’ wrote J.H. Palliser in his history of the village published in 1914. ‘It is backed by the wooded heights of the Billing, and commands a stretch of country – eastwards in the direction of Leeds and westwards over the purple moorlands of Rombalds Moor.’ He continued:
The old nobility may have gone, but in their stead has arisen a race of self-made nobles, born of trade and commerce, whose pretty villas or castellated towers stud the hillside or nestle in the wood, to the undoubted advantage of the landscape. The fortunate possessors of these abodes being almost exclusively Bradford traders, Rawdon is now but an aristocratic suburb of the ‘metropolis of the worsted trade’.
At the time of Verity’s boyhood, Rawdon, on the northern slopes of the Aire Valley, had a population of just over 3,000 people. There were woollen mills, dyeworks, farms and printing works and a growing host of small traders – butchers, innkeepers, shoemakers, confectioners and small shopkeepers – and four schools. ‘Fifty years ago,’ wrote Palliser, ‘handloom weaving could be counted by the score; it would now be very difficult to find a loom in the township. There is not so much employment now for gentlemen’s servants, gardeners, coachmen and labourers, the tendency being to run smaller estates with a reduced outdoor staff.’
The mansions of the older gentry were falling into decline; but new, smaller houses were springing up, and cottages of all descriptions were in great demand by newcomers, like the Veritys, moving away from the industrial towns of the West Riding, into the peaceful fields of Rawdon. The exodus, said Palliser, had arisen through the opening of the Leeds to Guiseley electric tram route, and also the erection of new works in the township, which gave employment to a considerable number of additional hands.
Sefton House, the venerable stone-built dwelling where Hedley Verity senior, after his prodigious labours, established his coal business and talked cricket for many long hours with his inquisitive son, still stands with all the imperturbability of a trusted sentinel. It is now over 150 years old and a recent discovery of loom ends in a false roof of the house indicates that it was once used for home weaving and thus pre-dates the building of mills in the area. Wool from Australia came to Rawdon to be woven in the houses of the village.
The guardian of Sefton House today is Grace Verity, a spry, neat and contented septuagenarian. She was the Standard One schoolmistress who drilled generations of children, including her own nephews, Wilfred and Douglas, and future Yorkshire cricketers Brian Close and Bryan Stott, in their alphabets and tables. Any severity, one feels, must always have been lightened by her larkish humour. The chuckles ring out like a series of musical exclamation marks in her conversation. Brother Hedley, everyone says, shared this ready wit and appreciation of ridiculous quirks. ‘He had a happy knack of knowing exactly, almost intuitively, how to relieve any tension with just the correct humorous remark,’ says his younger sister, Edith.
It does not require a great leap of imagination to hear the childhood frolics of young Hedley and Grace among the nooks and crannies of the rambling, friendly house. Grace and Hedley were impish playmates, red-faced with indignation and accusing each other when they were sent to bed for misbehaviour. As children it was their joint task to scrub the living-room floor on Friday nights. There were, inevitably, quarrels as to whether either had completed their section of the floor.
‘When we were small,’ says Grace, ‘Hedley used to set his toy soldiers out on one side of the kitchen table, even then planning his manoeuvres, and Mother would put a line down the middle so that I could play tiddleywinks.’ Grace and Hedley would be rapidly incensed if there was any invasion of their territory. ‘We always stuck up for our rights,’ recalls Grace.
It was at their former home at Armley, in the network of boisterous streets, that Hedley was engaged in his first business transaction. He attempted to barter Grace for a rabbit. Grace still relishes the memory. ‘I was only very tiny and in my cradle. Hedley used to go regularly across the road to inspect the rabbit. One day the owner asked Hedley if he would like the rabbit and said he could have it if he brought along his baby sister.’
Grace recalls being firmly grasped around the waist and heaved across to the neighbour’s house. ‘Hedley said: “I’ve brought the baby. Can I have the rabbit?”’ Verity senior’s version of the story suggested that it was rather more than a simple request. He said that his son dragged the rabbit in its hutch across the road and placed it safely in his own backyard. Then, fetching Grace’s clothing, he gave it to the neighbour and returned home to instruct his mother firmly: ‘Give that woman that baby.’ ‘Oh, Grace,’ Hedley would say playfully in later years, ‘I do wish Mother had let me make the swop. I’d have been much better off with the rabbit.’
The sobriety which distinguished Hedley Verity on the cricket field often collapsed into mischief especially within the family circle. The barrier of aloofness was lowered there and later with close cricket associates and friends, Bill Bowes, Charles Barnett and Leonard Hutton. Verity was cherished for his sincerity and his genuine concern for things that were important to others; but he could also play the droll and tease those who loved him. Best of all, he liked nothing better than to tell a joke against himself.
At Yeadon and Guiseley secondary school Verity was a conscientious and diligent pupil. He very quickly became a member of the school cricket eleven which was considered one of the strongest in the area. The batting was good, they had a capable wicket-keeper and, with the introduction of Hedley, at least two good bowlers. They were both left-handed. Stanley Shaw was fast and Hedley slow to medium and, as one contemporary related, ‘If one could not frighten opponents out, the other used to kid them out.’ Even then, at the age of 12, Hedley possessed a good sense of length and direction, tossing up a very slow ball that suggested a half-volley or a full toss that almost always confounded the expectations of the batsmen.
Verity was only eight years old when he was taken to see Yorkshire play at Headingley. Like all boys he had his heroes – George Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes stood supremely at the pinnacle of his worship; and the batsman he idolised most was Jack Hobbs. Increasingly, cricket occupied his thoughts and aspirations. Hedley liked nothing better than to go by himself to watch county matches at Leeds or Bradford, and Scarborough and its cricket festival was the magnet for the family holidays. His mother and sisters built their sandcastles on the beach but Hedley, in company with his father, watched his adored Yorkshire at the North Marine Road ground.
His passion for Yorkshire cricket did, however, lead him astray on one occasion during his last summer at school. At the beginning of the season it was announced that the Yorkshire second eleven would play in a match at Horsforth Hall Park, a short tramcar journey from school. Hedley had looked forward eagerly to the event, but the distraction must have caused him to neglect his studies, for he was given a detention when the great day arrived. He decided, with only the smallest twinge of conscience, to go to the match and face the consequences. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and he had no regrets about playing truant from school. Next morning he marched bravely into the classroom, as ready as any erring boy could be to take his punishment. He was even prepared to suffer the indignity of being sprawled across a chair and given a beating.
Any faint hopes that his absence had not been noticed were dispelled by an immediate summons from the headmaster. ‘At that time,’ the headmaster later commented, ‘I did not know how keen Hedley was on cricket, and he only escaped sound punishment by a small margin.’ He did, however, believe that the penalty had to be made to fit the crime. The selected discipline was even worse for Hedley than the searing strokes of the cane. Excessive love of sport, the headmaster decreed, had tempted the boy down a wayward path. Hedley was sternly told that he was barred from all school sport for the remainder of the term. The decision meant that he had played his last game for the school, for he went into his father’s coal business at the end of the summer.