Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance (24 page)

The seaward view

The inland view

The well

Operation Whitewash

Water, Water, Every Where

Dog and me

Cancer

Gaithuri at rest

Gaithuri at work

NIKH

Robert Crisp in Cardiff, June 1935 to play Glamorgan © Getty Images

Picture credits: all courtesy of the Estate of Robert Crisp and Getty Images where noted.

I would like to say a big thank you to Jonathan Twiston Crisp, a noble soul, a prince among men and a true brother who has looked out for me from the day I was born till now. If it were not for his generous support and unfailing encouragement to do the research, editing and polishing, this little masterpiece would not exist. It was a privilege and a pleasure to weave together these halcyon days from the articles in the
Sunday Express
and the papers that our father left in a trunk in his house in Greece.

I'd also like to mention the National Newspaper Library in London, part of the magnificent British Library, for preserving every issue of the
Sunday Express
between 1967 and 1974, where most of these pieces originally appeared. I spent a happy few days in 2012 going through the microfiche rolls and making photocopies of the articles.

Peter Crisp, 1 January 2014, Rock, Cornwall.

CRISP, ROBERT JAMES, DSO, MC, who died in Essex on March 3, 1994, aged 82, was one of the most extraordinary men ever to play Test cricket. His cricket, which is only a fraction of the story, was explosive enough: he is the only bowler to have taken four wickets in four balls twice.

Born in Calcutta, he was educated in Rhodesia and, after taking nine for 64 for Western Province against Natal in 1933–34, which included his second set of four in four, was chosen for the South Africans' 1935 tour of England. He took 107 wickets on the tour at a brisk fast-medium, including five for 99 in the Old Trafford Test. Crisp played four further Tests against Australia in 1935–36 and appeared eight times for Worcestershire in 1938 without ever achieving a huge amount.

But it is astonishing that he ever found a moment for such a time-consuming game as cricket. He was essentially an adventurer – he had just climbed Kilimanjaro when he got news that he was wanted for the 1935 tour – with something of an attention span problem.

Like other such characters, his defining moment came in the Second World War when he was an outstanding but turbulent tank commander, fighting his own personal war against better-armoured Germans in Greece and North
Africa. He had six tanks blasted from under him in a month but carried on fighting and was awarded the DSO ‘for outstanding ability and great gallantry'. However, he annoyed authority so much that General Montgomery intervened personally and prevented him being given a Bar a year later; his second honour was downgraded to an MC. Crisp was mentioned in dispatches four times before being invalided out in Normandy. The King asked if his bowling would be affected. ‘No, sire,' he is alleged to have replied, ‘I was hit in the head.'

Crisp never did play again and found the tedium of peacetime presented him with a problem far harder than anything offered by the Germans. He was briefly a journalist for a succession of newspapers, and went back to South Africa where he founded the now firmly-established paper for blacks,
Drum
. But he wanted a magazine about tribal matters rather than something appealing to urban blacks and rapidly fell out with his proprietor.

He returned to England, tried mink farming and, for an unusually long time by Crisp standards, worked as a leader-writer on the
East Anglian Daily Times
. While there he wrote two accounts of his war exploits,
Brazen Chariots
(1957) and
The Gods Were Neutral
(1960). Then he suddenly left and lived in a Greek hut for a year. Told he had incurable cancer, he spent a year walking round Crete, selling accounts to the
Sunday Express
. He died with a copy of the
Sporting Life
on his lap, reportedly having just lost a £20 bet, a risk-taker to the last. Crisp's 276 career wickets came at an average of only 19.88, but statistics are absurd for such a man.

Wisden obituary © Wisden 1995

You will be sorry to hear that Robert died on 3 March 1994. He was anxious that you should be told and that you should know that you were in his thoughts during his last days. He would also like you to know that he died happy in his memories to which you contributed so much.