REVIEW QUOTES
For those with gentler tastes, Stephen Chalke's The Way It Was is an enchanting voyage through
the
cricket history of the last half-century, capturing vignettes from voices now
silenced. A treasure.
Andrew Baker, Daily Telegraph, 27 November 2008
Stephen Chalke's The Way It Was has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to wriggle off this page
every time that it was scheduled for praise. It is a beautifully written series of interviews
and profiles of cricketers from bygone
days, and fans of the game of any vintage will surely treasure it.
Andrew Baker, Daily Telegraph, 4 December 2008
Glimpses of the past, before Twenty20 had been dreamt of, told with wit and 20/20 vision.
A half-forgotten age is brought vividly back to life when the Chalke pen gets to work. He keeps
himself unobtrusively in the background, yet you sense his deep love for and knowledge of the game
has enabled him to tease out tales from the players of that era which would otherwise have remained untold.
Simon Redfern, Independent on Sunday, 30 November 2008
Stephen Chalke's The Way It Was is a beautifully written trawl through yesteryear
as he draws on the memories of former players and cricketing folk.
Chris Waters, Yorkshire Post, 13 December 2008
The Way It Was is high on idiosyncrasy and local colour. It is the kind of book where a player
with no telephone is called to a Test match by a bicycling policeman and a diffident skipper
who has just performed a Herculean bowling feat puts his head into the opposition dressing room to murmur,
'Gentlemen, I do beg your pardon.' Yet Chalke's portrait is never sentimental, and some of his glances
at the forelock-tugging world of the old-style professional game can still take the breath away.
DJ Taylor, The Wisden Cricketer, January 2009
There are few writers who have such a deep affinity with cricket's past as Stephen Chalke,
and
still fewer who can capture its history so vividly.
Richard Lawrence, The Cricket Statistician
Chalke is always worth reading, and this collection of his columns will only enhance his reputation.
I particularly enjoyed his account of how Surrey's search for an amateur captain in 1946 led them to appoint
the wrong Major Bennett. It seems that Nigel had popped into The Oval to renew his membership
and was promptly made skipper instead of Leo. The professionals did not take offence:
"I reckon we can cope with him for the summer," said one. "His wife's a real cracker."
There are many, many more such stories in a wonderfully endearing book.
Patrick Collins, Wisden Cricketers' A|lmanack, 2009