SUSSEX THROUGH AND THROUGH

Jim Parks was halfway through his 91st year when he died on the final day of May last year. But he was known – and will forever be remembered - as Young Jim, the youngest and most illustrious member of one of the many famous families to represent Sussex. His father was Old Jim, and his uncle was Harry.

But Young Jim also suits because it captures something of the athletic adventurer who was such an exciting cricketer in the 1950s. And he remained an essentially young cricketer in the sixties, an ever-smiling player with smiling strokes to match.

He may not have been a truly great cricketer, like his team-mates Ted Dexter and John Snow. But he was a very, very good one. And he was a Sussex cricketer much more than the Italy-born Dexter and the Worcestershire-born Snow; he also played more first-class matches than those two put together. In the introduction to his biography, Young Jim, Derek Watts says: “This [is] the story of one of the county’s favourite sons. It is a Sussex life, born of the warp and weft of the Weald, which is the cradle of the game.”

Paul Weaver remembers Jim Parks, an ever-smiling player with smiling strokes to match.

Jim Parks might also be described as the epitome of Sussex cricket, his face browned by a southern sun, his stroke play honed by a history of rich stroke makers going back to the Golden Age days of Ranji and Fry. What is difficult to describe is the sheer joy his batting brought, the gorgeous timing of his cover drives. As the Sussex cricket writer Alan Ross observed: “Parks may not have been as great as Dexter but he often made the game look easier.”

Dexter himself – who died a few months earlier – had nothing but fond memories of his old friend. He said: “It’s always Hove that I remember best, Hove and Jim Parks, the sublimely gifted, sandyhaired Jim Parks – you could pick out his style from a mile away, open stanced with his hands high on the handle. No furrowed brow for this prince of sweet ball-strikers. What it was not wise to do was to take him on at table tennis, shove halfpenny, darts or tiddlywinks, to name but a few of his other talents. You were lucky to get away with your shirt.”

On batting with Parks, Dexter added: “My partnerships with Jim were always on an equal footing, where ascendancy was regularly passed from one to the other. Against subtle spin bowling Jim easily had the edge; against downright fast stuff, I had the advantage.” Dexter, though, was quick to defend Parks when it came to a perceived weakness against fast bowling. “For every bit of that silly tittle-tattle I could cite an innings of superb quality, and not a flinch of any kind, such as playing Jackson and Rhodes on a green top at Derby, when he stroked them all over the ground. The rest of us were struggling even to make contact.”

Although Jim scored more runs at Hove than at any other ground, personal reverie has him batting at Tunbridge Wells, bombing the rhododendrons with the easy power given by sweet timing, or at Eastbourne, for this most festive of cricketers appeared to be at his most celebratory at festival grounds.

I never saw the young Young Jim, the brilliant cover fieldsman, occasional leg-spin bowler and twinkle-toed batsman who, it was predicted, might be another Denis Compton. He was good enough to play for England in 1954, long before he donned the wicketkeeper’s gloves. It was Sussex captain Robin Marlar who made the seismic change to Jim’s career, picking him to keep wicket ahead of Rupert

Webb in 1958. The following year Jim scored 2,313 runs at more than 50, including the season’s fastest century in 61 minutes. He also claimed 93 victims.

He was probably at his best in the early 1960s when he played a pivotal role in the county’s early successes in the Gillette Cup and also won the majority of his 46 England caps. From memory, the genial smile only drained away in 1968. Then, stung by ailing health and poor form, he quit the Sussex captaincy in the middle of the season.

Worse was to follow. “My career with Sussex ended, rather sadly, in 1972,” he told me during a chat at his Worthing home. After a fine season he was offered only appearance money for 1973. “I felt insulted. I signed for Somerset and had a most enjoyable end to my career. But I’m delighted to say I never fell out with Sussex, just with [cricket committee chairman] Eddie Harrison. I was delighted to return as the club’s marketing manager.”

Then, as Sussex president, he carried champagne to the middle on a silver salver to celebrate the club’s first County Championship in 2003, a fitting final flourish for one of the county’s finest and favourite cricketers.

Andrew Frank

Andrew Frank from Horsham passed away on 3 March 2022 aged 70.

He was a kind and gentle person who had a great love of sport and who was a lifelong Sussex and Surrey Cricket supporter and Crystal Palace football fan. He attended all the home and away games he could when not working as an accountant.

His favourite place to sit at the County Ground at Hove was in the area above the pavilion. He loved to complete the scorebooks for the matches he watched and was often seen queueing to see the players to get their latest book autographed. He will always be in friends’ and family thoughts.

David Hollingdale

The son of Sussex all-rounder Reg Hollingdale (1925-1930) died on 31 August 2022. David was a life member of Sussex Cricket and a generous patron of the Sussex Cricket Museum, making a substantial donation for the recent restoration of historic paintings of C. Aubrey Smith and Arthur Hide.

David was born in 1936 after his father had moved to Edinburgh following his Sussex career. Educated at Fettes College, he was a prominent member of the Edinburgh Sports Club where he had served as chairman.

TIMOTHY J M c CANN

The author of the unrivalled Sussex Cricket In The Eighteenth Century (2004), and a professional archivist, who died on 26 June 2022 aged 78. Educated at Westminster School, Tim joined the West Sussex Record Office at Chichester in 1967 where he was well placed to record early cricket references.

He made many invaluable contributions to the Journal of the Cricket Society and more than 20 papers to the Sussex Archaeological Collections.

He worked with the late Duke of Richmond in staging commemorative cricket matches at Goodwood and in 2019 advised the organisers of the Hurstpierpoint v Henfield tercentenary match played at Danny Park on the playing conditions for an early 18th century re-enactment.