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Wealding the Willow: A Portrait of English Village Grounds in the Cradle of Cricket
Robin Whitcomb
Tempus Publishing Limited, The Mill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG £16.99 + postage
I have not delved into such an attractive book on cricket for a long time, and Tempus Publishing are to be congratulated for augmenting their range of county books and biographies with this beautiful volume - in a 'coffee-table' format – on village grounds in The Weald.

In the course of past few years, the author – who was the drummer on Sonny and Cher`s 1965 hit 'I Got You Babe ' - has been on a picturesque pilgrimage around some of the loveliest venues in the counties of Kent, Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex. As well as taking a plethora of beautiful pictures of the village grounds (so many, I gather, that there were enough to fill even a second volume), the author has also collected some fascinating and amusing anecdotes about each place.

The result is a delightful ramble through villages such as Ebernoe, where a cricket match and sheep roast traditionally accompany the village's Horn Fair on July 25th, Outwood , where adjacent to the ground there is the oldest working windmill in England, and Henfield, where there is a cottage called 'Cat House', not through a distant association with Mr. P.C.R.Tufnell, but because the cat belonging to a local vicar ate the owner`s canary, and in memory of his feathered friend, the occupant of the cottage put stencils on the eaves of the building showing cats with their paws outstretched, as if they were chasing birds.

At a time when so much professional cricket is played in urban amphitheatres, this delightful tour around the countryside of south-east England provides both a breath of fresh air and a fitting reminder of the rural origins and rich heritage of our great summer game. How delightful it would be if similar books, even if it were in album format, could be produced for other rural areas where the game still thrives.