For Valour

19th August 2019

Last year – in “Below Average” (28th May 2018) – I noted that Yorkshire CCC’s record over the 55 years of one-day competitions could indeed charitably be described in those terms. Of the 142 tournaments – ranging from 60 overs to 20 overs per side – played to 2017, they had won just five with, of the other counties, only Derbyshire, Durham and Glamorgan having a lower haul. The completion of the 2018 season took the score to 5 out of 144.

Earlier this season, Yorkshire maintained their record by failing to progress out of the Group phase of the 50-over Royal London One-Day Cup (which was subsequently won by Somerset), thereby leaving the T20 tournament (the Vitality Blast) as the remaining vehicle for possible one-day success. However, prior to last Friday’s fixture with the Durham Jets at Headingley, Yorkshire were placed bottom of the nine teams in the North Group in this competition, having won only 1 of the 9 matches to date (4 of which were completely rained off).

As only the top four sides qualify for the quarter-finals, they probably needed to win all 5 of the remaining Group matches (including the Durham game) in order to hold out any hope of reaching the knock-out stage.

It rained all day. The match didn’t get near the starting blocks. The probability of Yorkshire reaching the next stage of this year’s T20 tournament moved a little closer to zero.

This being Leeds, there is always a Plan B, of course. The inclement weather meant that I had a little more time than otherwise to visit a couple of the city’s cultural attractions – the Leeds Art Gallery and the Leeds City Museum – in each case to seek out one of the city’s greatest sons.

The collection in the small Ziff Gallery in the Leeds Art Gallery includes three works by the Leeds-born artist, John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893). One of them is a classical piece – Iris (1886) – but it is the other two to which I am repeatedly drawn. Reflections on the Thames: Westminster and Nightfall Down the Thames were both painted in 1880 and are part of the Atkinson Grimshaw oeuvre that focused on urban scenes at night-time. The former is a particularly haunting piece, I think, in which the “reflections” incorporate not only the lights of the moon and Westminster Bridge in the river’s waters, but also – perhaps – the thoughts of the lonely woman plying her trade on the Embankment.

The Leeds City Museum in situated in the impressive building that was once the Mechanics’ Institute in Millennium Square. At the entrance to “The Story of Leeds” Exhibition are the portraits of 20 or so famous people from the city, including the dual rugby international Jason Robinson, the snooker player Paul Hunter, the boxer Nicola Adams and the cyclist Beryl Burton. However, it was in a non-sporting context that I was making my visit.

Arthur Louis Aaron was born in 1922 and attended Roundhay School (which, as it happens, was also where I was educated many years later). He enlisted in the RAF in 1941 and was promoted to Flight Sergeant two years later. It was in August 1943 – 76 years ago this month – that the Stirling bomber, of which he was captain, came under heavy fire whilst on a mission over Italy. Several of the crew were killed, including the navigator, and Ft Sgt Aaron himself was badly injured, losing the use of an arm and part of his face. Nonetheless, he saved the remaining crew by directing the stricken plane towards North Africa and a landing in Algeria. He died shortly afterwards.

The posthumous Victoria Cross that was awarded to Ft Sgt Aaron is exhibited, along with his other medals, in The Story of Leeds Exhibition together with a maquette to acknowledge his

life and accomplishments and the letter written to his parents by Sir Arthur Harris, Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command.

On Friday, I sat for a little while in the café of the Leeds City Museum. Outside, the rain continued to pour down. I had been prevented by the elements from watching a cricket match. (On the same evening, several thousand Ed Sheeran fans would have been drenched when watching their idol perform at a concert in Roundhay Park). The Yorkshire cricketers – with an average age of 26 for the squad that had been announced for that evening’s fixture – had been frustrated in their efforts to make progress in a one-day competition.

These were minor inconveniencies.

Flight Sergeant Arthur Louis Aaron VC DFM died at the age of 21.