In this episode of the Stories Behind Books series, Mayukh Ghosh looks at a truly unusual work - Across the Oceans by Andy Collier.
Andy Collier’s Across The Oceans primarily deals with the ships that took the English teams to Australia over a 101 year period (1861-1962). The book has much more to it, though.
There are nicely written summaries of all tours with a special emphasis on the travels.
And some exquisite and rare photographs, most of them from the author’s own collection and some from the David Frith collection.
It’s his first book and has been published about twenty years after he first thought of it.
Here is what the author has to say about how he thought of this book:
“Across The Oceans was unwittingly born back in the 1960’s when a friend and myself would take to the rowing boat in my/his back garden during whichever sporting season was being played out at the time and row to a venue. On any day we may be on our way to Anfield (both being Liverpool fans), The Oval or to Australia. After we arrived at the chosen venue we would play out the match which would always end in the positive for us.
“A few years later when cricket had taken a hold in my life I was able to take part in many cricket tours. My first trip abroad was to Australia for the Bob Willis’ MCC tour of Australia in 1982-83 and arriving just in time to watch the last day of the Melbourne Test match when Chris Tavare’ dropped Jeff Thomson only to end up in the hands of Geoff Miller and for England to win by the closest of margins at the time by 3 runs. The journey to Australia was by plane and took a whole day (it never took my mate and me that long) but still measurably quicker than H.H. Stephenson’s team on the pioneering tour of 1861-62 of 6 weeks.
“There were then trips to West Indies and South Africa on playing tours and then supporters’ tours to world cups etc. These tours and its events were subconsciously absorbed. When I caught the bug of collecting cricket memorabilia it was the purchase of a signed photograph of SS Ormonde which carried the 1924/25 MCC team to Australia that started my passion for the tours abroad by ship.
“Around 20 years ago I thought it might be a good idea to convert my passion for the subject into a book but I really didn’t think I had it in me. Time was a big issue of course with a busy life I thought I would never have time, but as a member of the Cricket Memorabilia Society I was knocked back when A. Melville-Brown, who was President of Cricket Philatelic Society, produced a booklet 100 years of ships carrying English Cricketers to Australia. I thought there was no point in expanding the subject any further, but after going over the booklet a few times I thought that there would be many more ships involved than the 25 found and I was sure I had photographs of all the teams that took the long journey in my collection.
“So, in 2017 I took the plunge and started a remarkable journey of research which led me in various directions that were unexpected. I was correct in my hunch on the amount of ships used by the players as I found 112. Australia was still a fledgling colony without infrastructure very far in-land so to get from Adelaide to Melbourne and Sydney they travelled by ship around the coast and to Tasmania and New Zealand.”
It was not an easy book to write. There were challenges and at one point Collier realised that it can’t be a cricket book with only pictures of ships along with details about them.
“It was during the early research that the thought of just putting the photographs of ships and calling it a ‘cricket book’ probably wouldn’t interest many people, so, it was then I decided to write a short resume of each tour that had landed in Australia which included non-MCC tours (32 in all). I would include photographs of all the ships, hotels where the players stayed, some of the people they met and travelled with along with anecdotes from some of the players. I hoped to take the reader on the journey and tell them a little of what it was like on those early tours. Numerous photographs of the players on their off-field activities was a part of the book that most readers enjoyed whether they were visiting a gold-mine or on a fishing trip and also letters from the likes of P.F. Warner.
“When I started the book I had no idea of the intensity of the research that was needed with one weekend taken up determining the correct ship the players travelled that had the same name. These days inevitably led to the thought that the project was too big! At times I wished that I had chosen to write a book with a shorter time span but I had to put those thoughts out of my head and carry on. Also, at this stage David Frith had agreed to write the foreword to the book which was fantastic for me to have the world’s leading cricket historian involved also gave me the encouragement to finish the project.”
But then there were problems with the printing. It probably gave him one or two sleepless nights.
“Two years later the project was complete and time to print. I had gone to a printer around 6 months prior to completion and told them what I wanted and after a few days they came back to me with a cost of £3,000 including art work. On completion I went back to them only to be told that they had made a mistake and the price for 200 copies would £9,000. My heart sank, as there was no-way I could afford to get the book printed at that price, so I thought that was it, no book after 2 years of work. Fortunately I was to find another printer who would print the book for the original price but only 100 copies. After a few weeks I got the call to say the book was ready. Excitedly, I went to the printers, and there they were, all in boxes. On my return home I started to sign them when to my horror the third book had pages upside down and some blurred. On inspection most of the copies had faults of some kind, which to say was disappointing was an understatement.
This signed photograph of SS Ormonde which carried the 1924/25 MCC tourists to Australia was the first purchased by the author and is not included in the book.
“The printer was as upset as I was so he put things right, much to my relief. The word had gone out through various avenues and it was with great joy that all were sold with copies at Lord’s, The Oval, National Library of Australia and MCG Library and copies sent to America, India and Tasmania. The natural follow-up is ‘Across The Oceans’ With the Australian cricketers to Great Britain, which in theory, with 25 tours undertaken should be quicker to complete! As I write this, I am 8 tours in but the World Cup has interrupted proceedings.”
David Frith expects this book to become a collectors’ item in a few years’ time. Already there are no copies available from the author. Probably there’s still a copy with Ken Piesse in Australia and one or two with Michael Down in England.
When it becomes available in the secondhand market, it will be expensive. But worth getting.