Perim Island
CRICKET ON PERIM
​
Maps of Perim show one that the cricket ground was more or less directly in front of the Perim Hotel, which was therefore well placed to be the pavilion. Until very recently I had come across only two photographs that included cricketers: one a postcard of what is almost certainly a group of cricketers in front of the hotel and the other of a match in progress, also on a postcard and illustrated in The Postal History of British Aden by Major R W Pratt. The latter card is of particular interest as it not only names those players in the photograph but it can also be dated very precisely – bearing in mind that the date a postcard was used might be some years after the photograph was taken. That is not so on this occasion as one of the players (fielding at cover point) is named as being the Assistant Resident of the time, Lieutenant Parkin. The postcard was sent from Perim on 16th April 1908 – and Parkin had only arrived on 28th March that year.
In progress is what one assumes to be a practice rather than a match. With only about 22 British men on the island it would have been very difficult to raise two teams! And 22 would have included a handful working for the Eastern Telegraph Company or from those manning the Lloyds Signal Station. The players in the photograph, other than Parkin, are named as being: ‘Brookes, new 2nd engineer [of the salvage tug] Meyun’; ‘E P Morris’ [see the article The Morris Family on Perim]; ‘Supt of E Telegraph Co G A Caine’ [sp]; and ‘H L Rycroft’, who is batting.
One very much doubts if cricket was played in the hottest months of the year (unlike in Aden in 1964-65 when the cricket season mirrored that of a UK summer!). There is no record of a team from the Indian Army detachment ever having taken on the British Perim team; matches would only have been possible against teams from ships visiting Perim for more time than it took to coal.
One such match was that played between Perim and the ETC’s cable repair ship, the CS Electra, which was working out of Perim at various periods between 1907 and 1910. The Electra was based at Perim for some weeks in December 1907 and may not been temporarily based there again until late November 1910. During this second visit (and there may have been others) the crew of the Electra played cricket against Perim. The Electra was a small ship (only about 1,200 tons), so the sides may have been fairly evenly matched!
Descendants of E P Morris (who was fielding at square leg in the 1908 photograph mentioned above) have come up with three team photographs from this period which they very kindly have agreed can be used to illustrate this article. The first mentions the opponents are from the Electra and shows most members of both teams – unfortunately without names. It is possible that the player seated behind the score table is the Purser of the Electra, Alf Newsome; from his position seated in the centre he is likely to have been the captain of the visiting team. Etiquette would suggest that he is seated next to the captain of the Perim team; this would probably have been Lieutenant R de W Waller, the Assistant Resident in December 1910. It is very probable that E P Morris is the player seated on the far left.
The teams are outside the store of the ‘universal provider’, Charles Phillimore & Co Ltd, which was located on the ground floor of the Perim Hotel facing the cricket pitch. The store is also the location of the next photograph, of the same period (1908-1910) which is of only the Perim team, the opponents that day being the ‘Allcomers’ – presumably drawn from ships (and especially warships) in the harbour. The umpire is seated on the far right and it is probable that this is Alfred Morris; my guess is that William Morris might be the hatless player standing on the right of the doorway. Edward is probably in the picture as well and possibly is the player seated next to the umpire (his father?). One of the three Indians may be the eleventh man. The one on the far left not in whites has a foot on a box of the kind used to store numbers for a scoreboard and his job was probably to put the score up. [In the picture of the postcard of the hotel mentioned at the beginning of this article, there appears to be a scoreboard to the left of the players gathered outside the store.] Note the cricket bats on the ground, and the same scorer’s table which also appears in the first photograph.
The third team photograph is undated but presumably from the same period. The team is not outside the store and one can only hazard a guess as to the location. The two (saluting) cannon are of particular interest and suggest a government building rather than one of the Coal Company’s. Apart from the small court house there was no government building close to the cricket ground. The screen behind the players was of a material used on the outside of all quarters and is itself of interest. Another possibility is that the location is outside the front office of the Perim Coal Company, which apart from the hotel was the only other 2-storey building and which was also near the cricket ground. The Assistant Resident is likely to be the man seated in the centre and several of the other players appear in the other photographs. Edward Morris, if playing, is likely to be either the youth seated on the ground or the young man at the back wearing a pith helmet.