HIBISCUS COLUMN
you’ve slaved over into a bag to change into at the club, risking unsightly creases at point of use? Reg Bamford’s first rule of gamesmanship was to look smarter than his oppo. As a South African, he wasn’t raised to wash and iron. The week I played at Somerset West, the club outside Cape Town that he dominated as a young man, changed my own perspec7ve. My whites, normally on the scruffy side of Jeeves, were almost perfect, thanks to the services of Privilege, the beauty who emerged from her township on s7le8o heels dressed for the Royal Enclosure to look a'er us in our hilltop Airbnb. Other games have moved on from white, but croquet remains adamant. Seniors who have not gained weight like to show how well their Oxbridge cricket sweaters s7ll fit, even if they’ve yellowed slightly with age. Clubs encourage shirts, jackets and hats with embroidered logos for matches so that team members walk out in the same shade, a good plan if their choice of washing powder doesn’t play a part. Of course, the young look wonderful in white, lithe and supple as they
emerge from their home‐based IT consultancies to dominate the courts physically and mentally. No finessing for them. Mallet heads follow through to shoulder height, balls send shock waves as they smash into each other, or the perimeter fence; or howls of pain should it be someone’s ankle. Future world champion Aston Wade, back in his junior days when he was li8le more than an ominous rumour in the West Country, introduced me to the youth profile, while thrashing me at Hamptworth. I saw it again at the Cheltenham Easter tournament, when manager James Death amiably stepped in to offer a consola7on game to a lad who’d been knocked out early. Less than an hour later, he was smiling broadly having used his bisques to beat the European champion 26‐0. And at Blewbury where High Wycombe’s Gabriel lived up to his name with an avenger’s determina7on. A'erwards we asked two Wycombists how low they hoped their handicaps would go. The older man, an impressive seven a'er only three years, hoped for five. Gabriel said he’d rather learn to do a triple peel than set a handicap goal. Do you think he had a minus figure in the back of his mind…?
MINTY CLINCH Travelling Croquet Journalist Telling the Croquet stories as they unfold
For a game so viciously compe77ve, croquet is o'en quite cosy. Substan7al is not a problem: many enjoy high level success with ill‐defined waistlines. When double banked, tense sideline sit‐outs while opponents go round seamlessly to peg trigger comfor7ng gastro chats. Local pubs with decent chefs? Oh no, is he doing a triple peel? Gigondas or Chateauneuf du Pape? Best to have things to look forward to when the chopper’s looming. The dress code isn’t helpful. White is too stark to fla8er the average 60+ croquista, emphasising avoirdupois and scrawniness in equal measure. Victorians who ordained it for croquet, cricket and tennis couldn’t imagine a world in which players might have to do their own laundry. Do you step out of the shower into the whites, temp7ng fate re breakfast spillage? Or do you fold the garments
QUEEN VICTORIA’S CHILDREN’S CROQUET SET
By Adrian Coles
Lord Beaverbrook. Max Aitken fought with dis7nc7on in the Second World War, became a Conserva7ve MP and later ran Beaverbrook Newspapers, including the Daily Express. So what has all this to do with croquet? On visi7ng the Aitken Museum I was intrigued to find a croquet set, pictured below. The very helpful volunteer member of staff in the museum that day told me that it was believed to be Queen Victoria’s children’s croquet set, which they played with on their holiday visits to Osborne House. It was believed that Edward VII cleared the set out a'er his mother’s death, although the member of staff didn’t know how it
TUNNEL OF TIME
For croquet players, a holiday to the Isle of Wight might o'en involve a visit to Ryde Croquet Club. On our recent visit, though, we decided history was our theme and visits to Osborne House, Carisbrooke Castle, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s home at Farringford, along with some very nice restaurants in Cowes, meant that we didn’t have enough 7me to fit in a game. However, that didn’t mean we had a croquet‐free holiday. The Sir Max Aitken Museum in Cowes' main street is an idiosyncra7c collec7on of naval artefacts connected to the son of Churchill’s war7me cabinet colleague
came to be in the Max Aitken collec7on.
I was keen to learn a li8le more about Queen Victoria’s interest in croquet. Sadly, a search of her le8ers and journals, now fully digi7sed and freely available online, showed no hits for the word “croquet”.
www.croquetengland.org.uk | 4
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