Eager Youth at Lord’s

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7013, 12 September 1929, Page 4

Eager Youth at Lord’s

Impressions of Historic Match Coaches Survive at Famous Ground THE Eton and Harrow cricket match is the great occasion when the beautiful things of the past, old coaches, and the beautiful things of the future, young sisters, make their principal appearance of the English cricket social season. In the following article, a London writer gives a graphic account of the colourful scene at Lord’s this year, when the hundredth match was played between the two famous schools.

Every year for the last century Eton and Harrow have met each other at cricket, and today the fixture has become as important an event, socially as well as from a sportsman's point of view, as Henley or the Air Pageant at Hendon. •'For it is not merely to watch cricket that thousands flock to Lord’s every year when Eton and Harrow stage their titanic struggle. They come really to take part in a most important ritual. Last year, snatching a day off from a whirl of sight-seeing, I made my way to the historic cricket ground determined to see the match which from childhood days had always stirred my imagination. It was a perfect summer's day, one of those rare days which come to compensate one for months of frost and cold and rain. Lord’s, closecropped and trim like a billiards table, of the Julv sun. On either side of the lay. still and sparkling in the warmth pavilion, the quaint high coaches, reminders of the willowy days of W. G. Grace and bearded batsmen, were rapidly filling with debonnair young men, their beautifully gowned sisters, sweethearts and mothers, their exquisitely-groomed “governors." The Social Side

Blit as the morning wore on the spectators forgot ail about the game and turned their attention to the social side of this Festival of Youth. For youth sat enthroned on this bright summer’s day, youth in its top hat, Eton jacket and gorgeous waistcoat. I shall never forget the luncheon parade. The moment play was suspended the crowds left the grandstands and walked on to the field, all mingling in a time-honoured pageant of youth, beauty and chivalry. There were many beautiful frocks, sunshades and hats—it was the Women who made the main contribution to this kaleidoscope of colour—and the predominance of rod made the scene additionally striking. The young girls looked as cool and fresh as December flowers in a Cape Town garden. Most of them wore the colours of either Eton or Harrow, for the bravo-eyed little sisters aro the most fervid of Eton and Harrow patriots. On the field, too, I saw members of the House of Commons, peers, knights of the realm wellknown King’s Counsel, archdeacons and soldiers strolling around renewing acquaintances, and, I felt sure, exchanging yarns about "the old days.”

It was a sight which was aesthetically satisfying. At no other place in the world nor at any other occasion, I am sure, can one see such a high standard of good looks, good manners and physical equipoise. Father and sone alike, well-tailored and- well groomed, carried themselves with effortless grace and not the slightest suspicion of selfconsciousness. Even Smith Minor, aged 14, looked dignified in his silk topper, tasselled cane and waistcoat of crushed-raspberry silk! From Father to S'on But it was something more than the superficial attractiveness of the scene which impressed me as no doubt it has impressed all those South Africans who have had the good fortune to be present at Lord’s on the occasion of the Eton v. Harrow match. It was the fact that here in ideal surroundings the fine traditions which had contributed and were still contributing to the greatness of Britain and the British Empire, were being handed down from father to son, from those who occupied eminent positions in the State, to those who were being trained and equipped for the time when they would reach man’s estate. This intimate contact between men in high and honoured positions and their old schools, this happy union in public of parent and child, this annual reunion of friends of boyhood days must be, I felt, a powerful influence for good in the life of a nation. It is English as nothing else, perhaps, is English. It is a sight which gladdens the heart even of those who feel they haTe no part in it at all, and who, standing apart, watch with the impartial eye of the onlooker.

WATER FOR ATHLETES The Browne and Nichols School Eight (U.S.A.) did not drink a drop of English water when training for the Thames Cup at Henley. On the advice of their New York physician they used only spring water imported from France, his theory being that nothing so deranges the digestion so effectually as a change of water. The Browne and Nichols Eight, who are the undefeated champion schoolboy crew of America, average over 12 stone in weight and six feet in height.