Summertime naturally was given over to cricket. If you think bouncers off a turf wicket are fearsome, try batting on concrete. I still have a flattened middle finger from where I tried to dodge a bouncer from Jack Ellis. Served me right for putting the bat in front of my head. You were an instant hero if you could hit a six onto the Council Workshops roof next door, but I don`t think too many made it.  Our cricket wardrobe supplied by the Education Department ran to two bats, two balls and TWO pads. So if you were batting and given out, you had to run towards the next batsman and give him your pad. Best match we ever played was against Chermside State School on a field where the Kedron-Wavell RSL now stands. Part way through the game, the opposition kids asked us if we knew about yabbies, so we persuaded the teachers controlling the match to declare it a draw and the country boys taught the city kids how to catch yabbies with meat-on-a-string.

Windsor School was the top gun in our competition and we expected a flogging from the start when we visited. In one match, they batted first and their opening bat was being praised by their teacher/umpire as a future State Rep. As captain, I ordered myself to bowl first and sent down an opening humdinger. Got him first ball. Their teacher was dumfounded and took ages to give him out. Of course, they thrashed us afterwards, but we had our moment in the sun.

Coaching by teachers never happened to us, so we had a variety of weird attacks to unsettle the other side. Andy McLucas could be relied on to bowl one that invited flogging over the bowler`s head right to where we stationed a fieldsman. Ronnie Trevethan bowled a ‘skidder’ that never left the concrete. Me, I worked on the principle of tiring the batsmen out with easy shots.