Forty-Five Summers

In this unique pictorial autobiography Brian Johnston – ‘Johnners’ as he is affectionately known to the millions of regular Test Match Special listeners – offers a summing up of the great cricketing moments he has been in Test Matches, and the great players he has known, in a wonderful career as a radio and television commentator during which he has covered first-class cricket, in England and overseas, from 1946 to 1990.

Starting with Alec Bedser’s first Test in 1946, then on to 1947: ‘…those of us lucky enough to have seen that golden summer will never forget it. The sun shone, the crowds flocked to the ground, and Denis Compton and Bill Edrich matched the sunshine with the brilliance of their batting…’, up to the present day, Johnners lovingly, and wittily, evokes 45 summers full ‘… of cricket, happiness and fun.’

His memories are complemented with over 200 meticulously chosen photographs recording the most dramatic cricketing events:

The Oval, 1948: Don Bradman is bowled second ball in his last Test innings requiring only four runs to take his Test aggregate to 7000 and his test average to exactly 100;

Lord’s 1950: ‘ …the year West Indies cricket really came of age…’, the happy, colourful crowd advances on staid MCC members singing ‘Cricket, Lovely Cricket’;

The Oval again, 1953 (Coronation Year):  in a magnificent last Test victory England regain the Ashes after 19 years, and Brian experiences his most exciting moment on television: ‘… I have often listened to a recording of my voice, hoarse with emotion, shouting, “It’s the Ashes, it’s the Ashes!”‘

All the great players are here from Don Bradman to Graham Gooch and Freddie Trueman to Richard Hadlee in a cavalcade of legendary personalities, witnessed at first-hand, from all over the cricketing world.

With Brian Johnston himself approaching his eightieth year this book, set out year by year in diary form, offers and enduring archival record of Test cricket, and captures one man’s view of nearly half a century of golden cricketing memories.