WINTON DEAN

 Winton
Basil Dean was the first Secretary of the Sydenhurst Ramblers. At 97
years of age, he is almost certainly the only surviving member of the
Club who played in the very first match. This was against Farncombe at
Broadwater on 7th July 1946. Below are some of the comments he made in a
discussion taped during a visit to his house on Wednesday, October 6th,
2004:

Q: Presumably at the end of 1945/the start of 1946, there was a
decision or some meeting to decide the club would start?
WD: Somebody at Farncombe challenged Mike Gauntlett to get up a team to
play against them – possibly because they had a ‘blank’ fixture. At that
time, Farncombe were the strongest team in the district – bar Guildford,
possibly. Mike phoned round and spoke to me and asked me to get someone.
I knew I could produce Bert Jeffrey, who was my grandmother’s gardener
and our’s here (later to become the Ramblers’ umpire in the 1950s).
He was a very good player and a bowler. The team gathered actually
played the match as F. T. Gauntlett’s XI. As it happened, we absolutely
wiped up Farncombe, much to the surprise of everybody in the district.
We all went to the pub after the game and Mike said “We’ve got to start
a club. We must stick together.”
So the Club was more or less founded in the pub (which pub? – not
certain, it could have been the ‘White Hart’ at Farncombe) and Mike
appointed me Secretary – just like that! And “Ricky” (Richardson)- who
was not playing in this match – Treasurer. 
Mike told me to get on arranging fixtures for the rest of the season. So
I wrote to all the clubs I knew  about. Some of the matches were
replicated. If you’re founded in July you don’t normally a get full
fixture list and we ended up playing Merrow four times.
Of the match itself (details of which were copied by Winton into the
scorebook at a later date ‘owing to confusion in the Farncombe
scorebook’), Joe Rough made 55 for Farncombe, but ‘Blackie’ (G. P.
M. Blackmore) and Bert (Jeffery) both bowled very well. Bert had a high
action – sort of medium pace that naturally sent the ball away to the
slips. Every now and then it came back the other way, but I’m not sure
he knew how to do it – but he just did it! ‘Blackie’ was a right arm
fast bowler who subsequently played 2 First-class matches for Kent in
1948.

Q: ‘Blackie’ fell out with the Club, didn’t he?
WD: Yes he did. That was two or three years later. Somebody stole a
lot of money out of somebody’s wallet in the dressing room. I can’t
remember whose wallet it was. I know Mike looked into the matter and he
questioned everybody and the only conclusion he could reach was that it
involved ‘Blackie’ – who was a bit of a ‘rough diamond’. Mike told me to
write to ‘Blackie’ and say that ‘I’m afraid we do not want you in the
Club’. And I had a rude postcard back and that was the finish of the
matter. That was after two or three years; it didn’t happen straight
away.
Returning to the Farncombe game, Norman Mullins, who was keeping wicket
said that Bert Jeffery could have done with 4 slips. This proved
successful (as indicated by the score sheet entries which included
the catchers’ fielding positions – a practice that WD always carried out
meticulously) as 2 catches were held at slip, a third by Norman and
the 4th by Mike at extra-cover. Now I will never forget that. He was not
the fastest of movers, being a very large man. I was fielding at silly
mid-off as I always did to Bert. Sid Mercer – who was a very good bat by
club standards, hit a ball from him over my head like a bullet and there
was Mike fielding a long way off and I thought he’ll never catch that.
But he was so excited at the whole match, that his stomach bounced along
the ground and he held onto the ball. It was an extraordinary catch,
especially for a man of his size! Sid Mercer got a duck!

 Q:
Was George Marples playing in those days?

WD: Yes. He was caught by ‘Blackie’ at slip off Bert. So was Alan Street
for 0. He normally made a lot of runs for Farncombe. I played a lot for
Farncombe during the War so I knew the players.

 Q:
Was that how the opportunity to play Farncombe arose, because of your
connection with them?

WD: Well it may have been. I am not certain. When Ramblers batted, I see
that Ivan Roberts batted no. 3. When he went out he had a pipe in his
mouth and he got as far as the wicket before somebody made a remark and
he noticed. It was really very funny!

Q: Did Mike ask you subsequently “What are we going to call
ourselves?”
WD: It was Mike who settled that. Whether he settled it immediately
I’m not sure. It may have been a little later. But it was his decision.
I can tell you one comic thing that happened at Churt, later into August
of that first season. We were fielding. Somebody hit the ball right into
the corner of the field and a dog came out from the spectators and
picked up the ball where it stopped three or four feet inside the
boundary. When the fielder came to retrieve, the dog thought it was a
game and ran away challenging him to come and get it. And a chase
followed which went on for several minutes with the batsmen continuing
to run between the wickets before they stopped and joined in the general
laughter. Eventually the ball was retrieved from the dog. I’m not
certain how it was entered into the scorebook – boundary 4 probably!
Another memory I recall from that match is that Bert Jeffery who played
then bowled somebody with a stupendous break-back – and then apologised
to the batsman for doing so!

Q: Let’s go on to the second match that first season – against Brook
and Sandhills (as entitled in the scorebook).
WD: I see Jack Parker played for the Ramblers (84 including 4
sixes and 9 fours) (he had been selected for the M.C.C. tour to India
1939/40 which was abandoned due to the outbreak of war; played in 334
matches for Surrey 1932-52). This was the first of a number of games
in which he turned out for the Club and I remember keeping in a game at
Steyning (1951 – his benefit season) when he played. 
And – for Brook – J.C.W.MacBryan opened. He played for Somerset in the
1920s (1911-31 – 156 matches; 1 Test for England in 1924; Cambridge
Blue); Aubrey Raphael (Captain and later President of Brook in
the 1950s) and Stogdon. Now Gerald Stogdon – he was at Harrow with
me! He played one or two games for us (1946 – 2 games) but was
more inclined to Brook (Gerald Stogdon played for Harrow Ist XI
(1933-35) and shared in a stand with J.H.Pawle (130 in 80 minutes)
against Eton at Lord’s 1934.

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Winton Dean was a Classical Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge and
served in Naval Intelligence during WWII. He was a member of the Music
Panel, Arts Council 1957-60 and is regarded as one of the foremost
authorities on the composer George Friderich Handel. Below is a review
of a book by Nigel Fortune – “Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour of
Winton Dean”