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I knew Ted Crowe only briefly during my few years at Blundell's, but had known him quite well, if that's possible for a twelve-year old – when he was at Hillsbrow Preparatory School in Redhill, now long since closed.

He himself had been a pupil there and there are records of his batting and bowling (yes) prowess. He'd been a contemporary of Gordon Richards' sons, and met Jack Hobbs who visited. once (and one of the boys bowled him out). 

I recall him in three roles. This would have been in the late 1940s.

One was as the teacher at the end of our table in the dining room, with whom we discussed cricket, and who used to tease me about my (allegedly) sticking out ears, saying how useful such ears were as a aid to swimming speed.

We had discussions about what made a cricket ball swing, the techniques of swing bowling being not much understood in those days, and he took the trouble to research this and come up with a theory that it had to do with where you placed your feet in delivery. This, I recall, had something to do with the New Zealand bowler Cowie.

The second role was as a bedtime story reader. I recall Ted coming into the dormitory in the period before lights out and reading us stories, often short stories about cricket. I don't recall the author, but well remember one story in which an ageing cricket enthusiast dreamt of taking a match-winning catch and was found next day with arms outstretched dead on the sitting room carpet.

Another where a village cricketer was able to produce a miraculous delivery called a ‘popper' which got him suddenly into the test team puzzling the world greats of the time. 

He also read a novel about Formula One racing, where I first heard the names ‘Maserati'.

The third role was him as cricket coach (being a half-back in rugby I didn't come into his forward coaching) where he would spent hours of his time (he could have been relaxing somewhere else) just throwing balls at a given length for people to practice this or that weak shot.

I still rejoice at once – one of the few – actually hitting his stumps in the nets and getting half a crown which was ‘on' them. Ted impressed us mightily by how hard he could hit the ball, and had a shot when somehow he'd got to the pitch of the ball but his legs were together and his body formed a curve of immense power as he uncoiled dramatically.

Ted had a theory that you might take leg-stump as a guard, or even just outside leg-stump, so as when you're confident later in the innings you can push straight balls towards cover point for a single. 

We had a very small cricket pitch at Hillsbrow and once he managed to hit a four off his batting glove.

I was never entirely comfortable at either Hillsbrow or Blundell's, for all sorts of social and individual reasons, but he was able to relate to me – us – in a direct way without that dignified reserve that – so it seemed to me – most masters seemed to have.

Yet there was never a problem of respect, even when, trying to respond to the comment about my ears I pointed out that his own ears - one sticking out more than the other - would suit him very well to be a touch judge.

Ted's father ran a village cricket club on a Sunday, called The Crowes, which I got called up for one day when they were short. I was most relieved – given the fast bowler with the blood-shot eye at the other end – when Ted's brother got out before I'd had to face too many and the innings closed.

I briefly met Ted some ten years ago when he kindly asked me down to Stamford Peverell to talk about Hillsbrow. At the time I had started a history of the school, alas still not finished. He put me up, dined me, and showed great kindness in that very bachelor home of his which, I imagined, now that he had just retired, may have been the first time he'd lived in a house alone like that, after the Army, Hillsbrow and Blundell's. I recall walls of cricket photos, shelves of cricket books, and a sofa slightly awash with framed pictures also, I think, to do with cricket.

Ted seemed to me – at least at the distance from which necessarily I saw him – a good man, and someone who genuinely loved what he did for a living, lucky indeed in that and so had the option of what we call ‘happiness'.

I see his always schoolboy-looking haircut and rolling gait and swinging jacket tails, shoulders slightly slouched, the grin, the large hands.mIt isn't every schoolmaster we remember with affection, and when I read of his death the shock of grief was all the more sharp because, as I say, since my schooldays I've grown away from the traditions that education embodied but I hope his shade might grin if I perhaps dare to whisper that for me, yes, Crowe lives!

I beg to share in your grief.

John Haynes (Francis House) 1950-53