Category: Sport

Needle Time

If you read Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack or live in Wagga Wagga you will remember James (“Jim”) Higgs, OAM. He is a leg spinner who played for Australia in twenty-two Test matches. The late, great and lamented Murray Hedgcock would have known him.

Polemics

Many years ago I was instinctively anti hare-coursing. It seemed cruel to kill hares as a sport and there was plenty of polemic literature to reinforce my prejudice.

Yellow Sam

It seems rather like buying ones own furniture to build ones own castle, nevertheless that is what Richard Bellew did in 1472 – 1479 at Bellewstown.

The Best of the Best

If I were a guest on Desert Island Discs (unlikely) I’d choose Burke’s or Debrett’s as my book. It would be fun drawing family trees in the sand.

Loose Ends

I hate to write “unique” but Herald Investment Trust qualifies.

The Creations

After my ancestor, Patrick Bellew, was created Baron Bellew in the Peerage of Ireland in 1848 only three more Irish Peerages were handed out. That doesn’t sound quite right, but you know what I mean; namely Lord Fermoy (1865), Lord Rathdonnell and the Duke of Abercorn (both 1868).

Eton Fives

My Jameson grandmother hoped that I would become a sportsman like her brother, Tommy Jameson. She gave me a Squash racquet and Fives gloves but, until I discovered Backgammon, competitive sports were not my forte – probably because I was always the loser.