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BEN BROCKLEHURST



23 June 2007 • 12:01am

Ben Brocklehurst, who has died aged 85, was a sportsman, soldier, farmer,
publisher and artist; but his abiding preoccupation was cricket, to which he
gave invaluable service as owner and chairman of The Cricketer for 41 years.

A captain of Somerset in the early 1950s, Brocklehurst was, with his wife
Belinda, involved in starting and running several competitions. These included
The Cricketer Cup, for the old boys of 32 leading schools; the National Village
Cricket Championship; and the Lord's Taverners' Colts Trophy for boys of 14 and
15, which attracts some 1,500 schools of all varieties.

In addition he instigated the Company Cup, the European Cup, the Oxford
Cricketer Cup; and the hugely successful World Cup was his idea. Brocklehurst's
competitions depended on sponsorship but, in the years when no sponsors were
available, he funded them himself at the expense of his pension fund.

Known as a forceful batsman, he achieved some successes during his captaincy of
Somerset in 1952 and 1953, as when he scored a notable 89 against Pakistan. He
also turned out for I Zingari and Free Foresters as well as for the Arabs and
Hampshire Hogs.

But it was in a charity match at Hartley Wintney against a Hampshire XI that he
enjoyed his finest innings, making 202 not out in 112 minutes, including 17
sixes and 13 fours.

The son of a Canadian rancher, Benjamin Gilbert Brocklehurst was born on
February 18 1922 at Knapton Hall, Norfolk. At Bradfield he was captain of
cricket and represented the school at football, lawn tennis, squash and
athletics.

With victories in the discus and high jump he became Victor Ludorum in the
public school sports at White City in 1938, and the following year he won the
doubles and mixed doubles in the Devon Junior Tennis Championships.

He wanted to join the Navy in 1940 but, finding its recruiting office closed for
lunch, crossed the road to the Army establishment, and was posted to the 10th
Devons. After being slightly wounded by a bomb splinter while on guard duty
during the Blitz on Bristol, he was commissioned into the Royal Berkshires. But,
bored with guarding the coast of East Anglia, he transferred to the Indian Army.

On being posted to the Frontier Force Rifles Brocklehurst was sent to Wana on
the North West Frontier, where he was whipper-in for the Wana Hunt. Between
skirmishes with local tribesmen he painted some fine landscapes on the walls of
the officers' mess. When, some 40 years later, this building was used by Osama
bin Laden, Brocklehurst wondered if he had enjoyed them.

After narrowly escaping with his life when he was mauled by a bear in Kashmir,
Brocklehurst joined the 14th/12th Frontier Force Regiment in the 17th Indian
Division, and was mentioned in dispatches while commanding the Pathan company in
Lower Burma.

For five months after the Japanese surrender he found himself a 24-year-old
acting lieutenant-colonel in charge of Magwe Island, off the Arakan coast, where
he employed some 2,000 prisoners to restore the residency's fine gardens.

Returning to Britain, Brocklehurst farmed in Berkshire for eight years, and then
turned to magazine publishing, first with Country Life. He then became managing
director of a group of 23 technical journals which, at his instigation, acquired
The Cricketer.

When the decision was made to close the magazine in 1962 Brocklehurst bought it,
and left the company. It was a courageous decison at a time of flagging interest
in county cricket; he once wrote to The Daily Telegraph suggesting that matches
be played on ice and under floodlights.

But in the course of the next 20 years he amalgamated the magazine with Cricket
Monthly and almost tripled the circulation, while spawning such auxiliary
enterprises as the travel company Cricketer Holidays, which encouraged the
Greeks of Corfu to play the game. With EW Swanton as editor-in-chief,
Brocklehurst and his wife ran the magazine with unabated energy from their home
at Ashurst, outside Tunbridge Wells, entertaining a constant stream of visiting
teams. For alternative relaxations, he painted landscapes, created a fine garden
and sailed a cabin cruiser around the Ionian islands.

He served on the council of the Lord's Taverners when it became a charitable
trust, and was also the first chairman of the Friends of the Lord's Taverners.
Although his health was poor in later years, he continued to smoke his pipe and
to take an occasional glass of red wine until his death on June 17.

Ben Brocklehurst married, in 1947, Mary Wynn, with whom he had a son and a
daughter, and then, in 1962, Belinda Bristowe, with whom he had two sons.

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