No Surrender Percy Fender Part 1 (a guerilla cricket podcast)

The Guerilla Cricket Podcast

Percy Fender Memorabilia Auction: Online now here:

https://auctions.bhandl.co.uk/lots?term=percy%20fender&categoryCode=SME

Live Auction to be held Dec 5th at 10am. Address details below

At Guerilla Cricket, we are huge fans of Percy George Herbert Fender. He has a starring role in our theme tune after all.

Often presented as a divisive, comical, Bertie Wooster, monocle wearing figure (he never did wear one, but his wife did), he was in fact the polar opposite. Sharp, witty, principled, forward thinking, a master tactician and someone who fought for inclusivity and fairness.

Perhaps he did more to reinvent cricket than any other person of his age. A renaissance man (he wrote musicals and books), and, it now turns out, was an impeccable archivist of his own life.

This year Percy’s son Peter sadly died, but from that has emerged a treasure trove of papers, memorabilia and photos that Percy had assembled and Peter had lovingly kept. Much of it goes to auction on December 5th but before it does, we’ve had access and sight into the contents and with it an insight into Percy Fender’s world, including a remarkable series of never heard before recordings that Percy made in the 1960’s for his son Peter and for posterity.

They chart his life, his career, most of it with Surrey, his feelings, and perhaps, most telling of all, his role in Bodyline, the 1932 Test series in which cricket went to war.

Amongst some amazing memorabilia in the auction is an extraordinary letter the Percy typed towards the end of his life where he tells “the truth about Bodyline”.

The auction takes place at 10.00 am on December 5th at BHL St. Edmund's Court, Okehampton Street, Exeter, EX4 1DU. It will also be live here and select “Sporting equipment and memorabilia.

In part one here, Tony Bishop is joined by Dan Norcross, Jon Surtees from Surrey and most importantly, Percy’s two grandsons, Guy and Nick as we explore Percy’s early life, his flying career taking pot shots and zeppelins, his captaincy of Surrey and learn about a record that he still holds to this day.

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