One of the highlights so far has been our trip to St John’s Wood to visit the Lords Ground.
Laurie’s family has a significant history with Australian and English cricket. His great grand father on his mum’s side was George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott and Harry’s brother, Laurie’s great uncle, was Albert Trott. Harry and Albert were great cricketers. In fact both played first class cricket for Australia, Harry being captain of the Australian side in the late 1890s to early in the turn of the century. Albert was not selected for the Australian side to tour England so sailed under his own steam on the same boat to play for Middlesex and the English first class side which would be playing against Australia in that season.
Albert was a sensational cricketer, a great all rounder who ended up with a batting average of 102, better than that of Sir Donald Bradman.
One of Albert’s great achievements, apart from his batting average and sensational bowling figures, was that he slogged a ball over the top of the Lords Pavillion into Grove End Rd next door. This has never been repeated despite many incentives being offered to players during first class matches played at Lords. The latest reportedly offered to English cricketer, Trescothic, to achieve the same feat - one million pounds!
Albert Trott
With this history we trekked to Lords looking forward to one of their guided tours, which are available year round. We were not disappointed being taken through the magnificent pavillion, the Long Room, the Writing Room, the Committee Room and the players’ change rooms. The pavillion is steeped in history with magnificent portraits of famous cricketers from many nations. It is all very upper class English with beautiful timber walls and fantastic wooden furniture. Walking through the place there is an atmosphere of almost reverence. Our tour leader told us that none of us would be allowed in on a match day because we would have to be (the boys that is) wearing shirt and tie, dress trousers and shoes, no jeans, trainers or walking boots! Dipped out on all counts!
Laurie at the Lord's Ground with the new media centre behind.
After the tour ended a staff member approached us and said he was a great fan of Albert Trott’s and felt his contribution to English and Australian cricket had been unrecognised. He escorted us to the nursery pavillion which is where the MCC trains its young cricketers. They have an extensive schools’ training program too. While we were there several indoor cricket matches were being played by young cricketers from a girls’ school. He showed us a large display board of photos of past cricketers, including Albert.
Paul Winters and Laurie in the Nursery Pavillion
This was a real treat and we thank Paul Winters sincerely for his help in appreciating the significance of Laurie’s cricketing family.
A quirky aspect to Lords is the recent inclusion of overhead lighting. There were so many objections from the neighbours that there are heavy restrictions on when they can be used. In fact when not in use they have to be lowered. They seem to operate on a telescopic system and actually fold under as well. Quite bizarre for such huge infrastructure and an incredible feat.
One of the lighting towers lowered and turned over out of the way!
After leaving the ground in drizzling rain we headed for the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing. And guess what, Laurie took the compulsory photo of me striding across the road. This activity is quite an issue for drivers as SO many people do it that it becomes difficult to continue along the road. I can’t imagine what it would be like in the middle of the summer tourist season.
THE Abbey Road crossing!
That is a fantastic benefit of travelling in winter. There are no queues, no timed entry into attractions and very relaxed staff because they are not under any pressure. The only problem occurs if you are silly enough to travel the tube in peak hour. This has happened to us a couple of times, once in particular the train was SO crowded we couldn’t even hang on to the grab rails. But we didn’t have to because the sheer volume of humanity held us vertical! There had been a signal failure on another line so those passengers had diverted their journey to avoid the delay!! God bless their cotton socks!
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