Chris Waters: Putting pen to paper purely for benefit of those living on Mars

Whether on the news or sports pages, such contributions are invariably informative and richly entertaining. Even those criticising yours truly often cause me something of a chuckle. It is better to be talked about than ignored, so they say, even if, to quote one of myriad malcontents: “Mr Waters must be living on Mars.” It’s Headingley, actually, dear Mr Malcontent, but that’s by the by. What is important is that readers’ letters continue to pour in and contribute to the lifeblood of the Yorkshire Post. Both letter-writing and newspapers are a dying breed in a digital age and need to be encouraged as much as possible. The ability to communicate in more than 140 characters is becoming increasingly rare as Twitter’s tentacles permeate the cosmos. Which brings me, in a roundabout sort of way, to a new book that has just landed on my doormat on the red planet. Entitled ‘Not In My Day, Sir’, and published by Aurum Press, it is a collection of cricket letters to the Daily Telegraph edited by Martin Smith, the newspaper’s former assistant sports editor. The book contains a number of Yorkshire-themed offerings culled from more than 80 years of the Telegraph’s letters page. That page has attracted contributions from the great and the good ranging from former Test cricketers such as CB Fry and Percy Fender to the likes of Lords Longford and Tebbit. Letters have long been a way for the cricket-loving public to let off steam and/or tell people such as myself we are living on Mars. As Smith observes of the Telegraph’s contributors: “Anything and everything comes into their sights; a lot of the topics appear again and again like targets on a fairground stall, emphasising that there really is nothing new under the sun when it comes to cricket: the catering is still underwhelming at most grounds, the jobsworth on the gate still over-officious, the selectors always pick the wrong players, and the lbw law remains incomprehensible to all but the legislator who drafted it.” Smith goes on: “If you put together all the theories and suggestions expressed by Telegraph readers the result would be a game that resembled a pushmi-pullyu even Dr Dolittle, let alone Dr Grace, would struggle to recognise. “If one correspondent had his way, the pitch would look completely different, with the two sets of stumps not aligned: it would prevent bowlers following through, or batsmen running along the line of the stumps, and scuffing up the wicket, he reasoned. “However, there would be no Frankenstein’s monster if a committee of Telegraph readers put together an identikit profile of their perfect player. “Far from it. He would wear all-white, never spit, never chew gum, wear a helmet or have hair longer than is permissible at Sandhurst; nor would he appeal speculatively or speak to the umpire unless spoken to, and he would always salute his superiors, especially if said superior was wearing an MCC tie. “A bit of Army discipline never did anybody any harm, old boy.” Not everyone, however, subscribes to such Sergeant Major principles. When Yorkshire’s Michael Vaughan resigned as England captain in 2008, an Oliver Tuhey, of Beckenham, wrote to the Telegraph in support of Vaughan’s lachrymose farewell. “Sir – I was disappointed by the vitriolic tone with which Judith Woods expressed her contempt for any man who cries (Features, 5 August). “It was clear that the former England cricket captain, Michael Vaughan, was struggling to contain his emotions. “He was, after all, relinquishing the highest position of his profession. “I would like to live in a society where a man may express himself without fear of being labelled a sissy or having his masculinity questioned. “A man cries because he cannot not cry. There is no simulation or synthesis of emotion; it just happens.” As one might expect, many of the Yorkshire-related contributions do not beat about the bush. And humour – drier than a desert – is never far from the surface. In September 2010, a David Gray, from Richmond in North Yorkshire, was clearly under whelmed with the BBC’s cricket coverage when he wrote: “Sir – If the Pope’s presence at Westminster Abbey was seen as sufficient reason to interrupt BBC Radio 4’s cricket commentary, could we invite him to stay here indefinitely?” My personal favourite, however, comes from a Sue Baines, of Quernmore. “Sir – One of my cats, sadly deceased, was called Geoffrey. We referred to him as Geoffrey Boycat – my husband being a Yorkshireman and keen cricketer. “Poor old Geoff used up many of his nine lives – for the last four years of his life he only had three legs, but could still chase for the kill. My husband then referred to him as Wicket, which was a bit cruel.” On the subject of GB, it is no trade secret that he is not Richard Hutton’s favourite person. Hutton, the former Yorkshire and England all-rounder and son of Sir Leonard, has no truck with his old county team-mate. After Fred Trueman died in 2006, Boycott referred to an incident involving Hutton in his Telegraph column. It inspired this immortal response. “Sir – Geoffrey Boycott’s piece on Fred Trueman (3 July) contains inaccuracies. “Firstly, I never addressed Fred as ‘Trueman’. Had I done so, he would never have spoken to me again. “Secondly, the good-humoured exchange followed Yorkshire’s win over Leicestershire at Sheffield in 1968, in which Fred, who also happened to be captaining the side at the time on account of injury to Brian Close, took six for twenty in the second innings. “This was to be Fred’s last season and even he had begun to realise that his considerable powers were on the wane. “This failed to prevent his boasting of the ways in which he had dismissed Leicestershire’s batsmen, demonstrating ball by ball how one had swung away late, the next one nipped back, and so on. “This prompted my mischievous question of whether he had bowled a ‘straight ball’. “He was somewhat taken aback, but retorted: ‘Aye, it were a full toss to Peter Marner and went straight through ‘im like a stream of p*** and knocked out his middle stump!’ “‘Sobers’ – incidentally, Fred would always accord his fellow giant of the game the respect of the prefix Gary – was nothing whatever to do with the proceedings. “Incidentally, there was a follow-up question from me, which was not reported: ‘Fred, would you describe yourself as a modest man?’ “Sadly, he did not live long enough to furnish an answer.”