Neville Cardus

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Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus (2 April 1889–28 February 1975) was a writer and critic, best known for his writing on music and cricket. For many years, he wrote for the Manchester Guardian.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Cricket and music critic 3 Move to Australia 4 Return to London 5 A non-establishment figure 6 Footnotes 7 Bibliography of works 8 References 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Early years

Cardus was born in Rusholme, Manchester. His date of birth is the subject of much conjecture. A letter published in The Times during April 1988 claimed that, after his death, it was discovered that he was born in April 1888; Yehudi Menuhin was involved in marking his birth centenary in 1988. Cardus was illegitimate and never knew his father. He lived with his mother, Ada Cardus (1870–1954), who was described as a "genteel prostitute", in the house of his maternal grandfather, an ex-policeman.^[1] After attending a local board school for five years, Cardus left at thirteen and took on various jobs before he being employed as a clerk in a marine insurance firm in December 1904. In his spare time, he read widely and became self-taught in literature, philosophy and the arts.^[2] Admiring the critics who wrote about music and theatre for the Manchester Guardian, he consciously attempted to adopt their writing style.^[1]

From his earliest years, Cardus was drawn by the twin attractions of cricket and music. In 1912, he was appointed as the assistant cricket coach (to Walter Attewell and, later, Ted Wainwright) at Shrewsbury School in Shropshire.^[3] There, he came under the influence of the headmaster, Cyril Alington, who appointed him as his secretary in 1914. Rejected for military service in World War I because of his short-sightedness, Cardus briefly wrote for the Daily Citizen instead.^[1]

[edit] Cricket and music critic

When Alington moved to Eton in 1916, Cardus also felt the need to move on. He successfully applied for a junior post on the staff of the Manchester Guardian, now calling himself Neville: his articles were attributed to NC.^[1] The editor, C. P. Scott, recognised Cardus’s talent and rapidly promoted him to the post of second-string theatre critic, and in 1919 he became the paper's cricket correspondent. On 17 June 1921 at Chorlton, Manchester, Cardus married teacher Edith Honorine Walton King (1881-1968). Cardus described her as, "a great spirit and character, born for sisterhood not marriage".^[1] In 1927, Cardus became the paper’s principal music critic after Samuel Langford's death, and retained his cricket role. Cardus later said, "to be paid to watch cricket at Lord’s in the afternoon and hear Lotte Lehmann as Strauss’s Marschallin in the evening, was nothing less than an act of Providence".

Cardus attracted a wide readership, writing as "Cricketer". John Arlott wrote: "Before him, cricket was reported ... with him it was for the first time appreciated, felt, and imaginatively described". His prose, rich with allusions to music and poetry, made folk heroes of the players. Similarly, his approach to music was intuitive and personal, rather than academic and technical.^[1] He covered concerts in London, Vienna and Salzburg, and mixed with leading musicians and composers.

[edit] Move to Australia

Cardus visited Australia to report on England's cricket tour of 1936–37, later writing a book on the series titled Australian Summer. He visited the country again in 1938. At the onset of World War II, he feared losing his job so he accepted an offer from Sir Keith Murdoch to cover a tour of Australia by Sir Thomas Beecham, arriving in February 1940. Employed by Melbourne's The Herald, Cardus found that he could not review concerts for an evening paper, so he moved to Sydney to work for the Sydney Morning Herald. He helped to lift the standard of musical criticism in Australia.^[1]

On ABC Radio, he hosted an hour-long program, "The enjoyment of music", which enlarged the audience for classical music across the country. He also gave a weekly, ten-minute talk on music, illustrated by records, for the children's Argonauts' Club program and regularly wrote on music and cricket for the ABC Weekly.^[1] Early in 1942 Cardus rented a small flat at Kings Cross where he was joined by his wife. There he wrote Ten Composers (published 1945), which included an acclaimed essay on Gustav Mahler, an autobiography (published 1947) and Second Innings (published 1950).

[edit] Return to London

Cardus permanently left Sydney in 1949 and returned to London. He rejoined the Manchester Guardian in 1951 as its London music critic and occasional cricket writer. He toured Australia to cover England's cricket tours of 1950–51 and 1954–55. He was appointed CBE in 1964, knighted in 1967, became an honorary member of the Royal Manchester College of Music in 1968 and an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in 1972. His most personally valued honour was the presidency (1971–72) of the Lancashire County Cricket Club. He published eleven books on cricket and nine on music.

[edit] A non-establishment figure

"Slight, lean and bespectacled, with a gnome-like appearance in his last years, Cardus was a familiar sight at Lord's or the Garrick Club, pipe in mouth and book under arm". Roger Covell called him a, "marvellous raconteur and monologuist with his all-weather overcoat".^[1] Cardus was never an "establishment" figure. Hart-Davis and G. W. Lyttelton encountered strong resistance when they sought to get him elected as a member of the MCC, and Cardus himself came to feel like an outsider at The Guardian. However, he was always highly regarded by professional cricketers (like Don Bradman) and by the greatest musicians: he managed to maintain close friendships with Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir John Barbirolli, though the two conductors cordially disliked one another.

After his death, Alan Gibson summed up Cardus's impact on cricket writing:

All cricket writers of the last half century have been influenced by Cardus, whether they admit it or not, whether they have wished to be or not, whether they have tried to copy him or tried to avoid copying him. He was not a model, any more than Macaulay, say, was a model for the aspiring historian. But just as Macaulay changed the course of the writing of history, Cardus changed the course of the writing of cricket. He shewed what could be done. He dignified and illuminated the craft.^[4]

The best of his cricket pieces were published in several volumes by Rupert Hart-Davis, but much of his writing on music–which he himself regarded as his more important work–has not been reprinted in book form. When the childless Cardus died on 28 February 1975, his obituary article in The Guardian took no fewer than three eminent writers to write it: J. B. Priestley, Hugo Cole and John Arlott. More than 720 people attended his memorial service at St Paul's, Covent Garden.^[4]

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Bibliography of works

Cardus published Autobiography in 1947; his other books include:^[1]

Works on cricket:

• A Cricketer's Book (1922), Grant Richards.
• Days In the Sun (1924), Grant Richards.
• The Summer Game (1929), Grant Richards and Humphrey Toulmin.
• Cricket (1930), Longmans, Green.
• Good Days (1934), Cape.
• Australian Summer (1937), Cape.
• Second Innings (1950), Collins.
• Cricket All the Year (1952), Collins.
• Close Of Play (1956), Collins.

Anthologies/collections:

• Days In the Sun (1929), Cape (Travellers' Library). Selection from A Cricketer's Book and Days In the Sun (revised).
• The Essential Neville Cardus (1949), Cape. Selected with an introduction by Rupert Hart-Davis.
• The Playfair Cardus (1963), Dickens Press.

Works on music:

• Ten Composers (1945), Cape.
• Talking Of Music (1959), Collins.
• Sir Thomas Beecham (1962), Collins.
• Mahler: the Man and His Music (1965), Gollancz.

[edit] References

• Brookes, Christopher (1985): His Own Man — the Life of Neville Cardus, Methuen.
• Cardus, Neville (1947): Autobiography, Collins.
• Cardus, Neville (1950): Second Innings, Collins.

[edit] See also

List of works by cricket historians and writers

[edit] External links

• Tribute by J.B Priestley in The Guardian, 1 March 1975
• The Knight Who Had It Right