An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 33 and again got nearly drowned by getting into the back suck of a groyne. These two narrow escapes from drown– ing entirely put me off swimming in future. I was working a good deal at local Church history on this journey, and saw my old cousin, Chapman , the blacksmith, a well educated man, who said he bad gone to Holt Grammar School with my grandfather, but I rather doubt it, and his wife. Went up Norwich Cathedral spire. On the 17th September I inspected the old Church Register of Aylsham, which the rector bad left with Mr. Forster, whose clerk Howlett showed it to me. Since then it ha~ disappeared, but I hope it will turn up again some day like those of Foubham and Felbrigg have recently done. Later in the autumn I went into lodgings at the King's Head, Roehampton, and trained there. I used to walk up to Golden Square, and walk back via the West London Cricket Ground to train, and then back to Roehampton. The two Chinnerys, E. J. Colbeck, and I were practically daily visitors to the ground. Onr training refreshment after exercise was invariably half-a-pint of public house port, and an arrowroot biscuit eacb. Verily we must have all had dura ilia with a vengeance. Ou: usual diet was one big cup of tea and a chop or steak for breakfast, the same without tea, but with half-a-pint of bitter or old ale diluted with three -pennyworth of gin for dinner, and the same for supper. The idea was the old-fashioned one (now exploded) of limiting men to two pints of !iquid a day. None of us smoked then, and yet we were fairly successful. Any amount of exercise included a running before breakfast with the "Barnes Beagles," with whom on 10th January, 1870, we killed three wild rabbits on Barnes Common. R. C. Morley, the worthy master, is still alive hale and hearty, though very old. On 3rd October, 1869, I got engaged to my wife. 1 In 1870 (Whit Monday) having taken a team down to Nottingham, I was beaten off the mark for the first and only 1 Of my wife, whose acquaintance I had ruade by the way through my athletic habits, I will only say, that she was both the prettiest and pluckiest wowau I ever saw, and was for many years the most devoted mother and nurse to me aud her numerous children. She feared nothing, she was always ready to tackle– anything-:6.re alarms, burglar or alleged ghost. D