John Cunliffe (1933–2018)

I am pleased to report some interesting news. For many a moon I have wanted to corroborate a possible serious error in a Postman Pat book. A former colleague of mine reported to me that there was an unforgivable mistake in one of the illustrations. Picking up a copy of Postman plays for Greendale by John Cunliffe,I flicked through the book feverishly and discovered that the error reported to me is indeed correct. The story is about the crucial county championship final between Greendale and Pencaster. On page 20, actually an unnumbered page in this particular Andre Deutsch/Hippo Books edition (reprinted 1988), there is a colour illustration of Postman Pat bowling. His mid-off is wearing a pair of white gloves. I do not have the latest edition of the M.C.C. laws of cricket at hand with regard to apparel. I am certain however that fielders other than the wicket-keeper cannot wear gloves on the field of play. It may be permissible to wear a bandage, say on a damaged thumb, but a full glove on each hand is out of the question. Greendale went on to win a tense encounter. I shall write to the publishers to point out this infringement and will ask for the match to be expunged from all first class records. I shall suggest that the illustrator Joan Hickson should have known better. This blunder mars an otherwise excellent tale of cricket that encapsulates the spirit of the village game. As a postscript, I shall suggest to the publisher that in future care will need to be made with regard to sentences such as ‘There was a lot of handshaking, and smiling and hugging’. This should be accompanied by a footnote along the lines of ‘In the event of pandemics or other such plagues, government regulations in place at the time should be applied with regard to touchy feely behaviour’.… (more)