Jock Burnet – a Portrait

Jock Burnet was Bursar of Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1949 to 1977. But he was much more than that, for he was a man who touched many lives. He was a don who had much influence behind the scenes, not least in Cambridge, the Church of England, independent education and court games. He co-founded the Jesters Cricket Club whilst still a schoolboy at St Paul’s and out of that grew what many would argue is the premier court games club in the world – the Jesters.

2008 saw the 80th anniversary of the Jesters and, in 2009, the 60th anniversary of the Rugby Fives Dinner and Match, the Past versus Present. These milestones were commemorated by Jock Burnet – a Portrait, edited by Richard Morgan and privately printed. The list of contributors includes: the late Bishop Peter Walker, Bishop Simon Barrington Ward, Dennis Silk, Julian Barker, Robert Dolman and Bob Dolby.

As so many of us remember, Jock was absolute for friendship. The hope behind this short book was that it would not only bring back the best of memories but also give insights into a man who had such an influence for good. The book was an invitation to return to 28, Selwyn Gardens to spend an afternoon with Jock and, of course, stay on for whisky and dinner.

This publication of 500 copies was designed by Humphrey Stone and had the full backing of Rhoddy and Susie Voremberg and David and Ann Burnet. All profits went to Mencap.  [Richard Morgan]

The account below is the full version of the chapter written by Bob Dolby forJock Burnet: A Portrait

Jock and Cambridge Fives

In July, 1949 Jock Burnet became President of the Cambridge University Rugby Fives Club, a post he was to hold until his death in 1989. Jock was the fifth holder of that office since the Club had come into existence in 1925. The first President was JE Scott, fellow of Caius College, who won the first recorded Amateur Doubles in 1926, partnering the first Captain of CURFC, WE Powell, likewise of Caius. The intervening three incumbents were not active players, though the Reverend Edward Earle Raven, President when Jock was an undergraduate, had been an all-round sportsman of note at Uppingham and St. John’s. Jock was the first President to have played in the Varsity Match against Oxford, which he did in 1932, in the days before a Half-Blue was awarded for Fives. Playing fourth pair in the doubles, Jock and his left-handed partner DC Fleming-Williams (Christ’s Hospital & St. Catharine’s) fought out four very close games as their contribution to an overall victory of 333-250.

Cambridge VIII 1932 Jock second from right

What do we know of Jock the Fives player? An Honours Board outside the courts at St Paul’s records him as Secretary of Fives in 1928-29. He was unbeaten in his final season as St. Paul’s Number One, so had the National Schools Singles competition existed in those days he would probably have been a contender to win it. Ironically it was he, through the Jesters, who initiated the competition in1930, just one season later. He got into the Cambridge VIII to play Oxford just the once, in 1932, i.e. his last year, so perhaps he was not quite the player that his Captain that year, John Armitage, or the Hon.Sec., Jack Davies, were. In the informal picture of the VIII taken before the Varsity Match he stands one from the end looking slightly sheepish, even apologetic. I have always found it difficult to imagine an on-court Jock, competitive and perspiring, having otherwise only ever seen him either in suit and tie or – in informal mode – wearing cardigan and tie. Sadly, all of his contemporaries from the 1930s have passed away, so there is no one to tell us first-hand about his style of play. It is with the generous help of David Barnes, who looks after the archives of the Rugby Fives Association, that I have been able to build up a picture of a young man who clearly played with more art than power.

1929 St. Paul’s School Jock Burnet seated from right

One of the few mentions of Jock after he came down from Cambridge occurs in the November 1932 issue of ‘Squash Rackets, Fives, Tennis and Rackets’ (Price: 6d. Weekly). Here, an entry discussing the Jesters’ team to visit Cambridge records that “JF Burnet will again be playing with AN Gilkes, a combination of both cunning and wizardry, as somebody was heard to remark”. The apparent delicacy of Jock’s play is further underlined by a report on the one time he is recorded as entering for the Jesters Singles Cup, in 1933. He drew A Francis (Westminster Bank), “left-handed and a powerful hitter, while no one uses more guile than JF Burnet”. The report on their encounter reads: “JF Burnet did not play in his usual clever way and he used the angles too infrequently, chiefly because he was too afraid of the mighty left hand of A Francis, his opponent. Burnet has a strong dislike to being hit at, and he missed his chances.” During this period Jock also entered the 1932 Cyriax (Amateur Doubles) Cup with Roger Winlaw, representing the Jesters. How they got on is not recorded. Thereafter there is no mention of Jock competing in tournaments.

1932 Jock with Roger Winlaw

As for after the war, there are now few, perhaps only Barry Trapnell, Dickie Clarke and John Burton, who remember Jock playing Rugby Fives. He twice played in the Past versus Present, partnering John Armitage in 1949, the very first of these fixtures, and R Kittermaster, a distinguished Eton Fives player, in 1951. In those days in the early 1950s he certainly played some Eton Fives on the court in Magdalene, the only one which is used these days in Cambridge. I think it likely, however, that he devoted the greater part of his energies to the Jesters in general rather than to Fives in particular. Jock was essentially a club man, a true amateur, in the best sense. Here he is describing the Jesters’ early years in an article written for John Armitage’s magazine in November 1933: “It was the good fortune of the club to have sprung into a larger sphere of activity just when there was the most demand for it: first-class players were glad of matches from which the grimness of the competitive spirit was withdrawn, and the other members were equally glad of the chance of invaluable experience provided by what was, if not too deadly serious, at least genuine match play.” Yet for all his love of convivial club Fives we should not forget that it was Jock, through the Jesters, who initiated the Public Schools Championship (the singles trophy is the Jesters Cup) and the Amateur Singles (the Jesters Club Cup).

1949 Jesters Cricket Club: Jock seated in front row with Barry Trapnell to his left

Bill Bailey, the Alleyn Old Boy who won the Cyriax Cup for Amateur Doubles six times between 1933 and 1952, tells a nice story in his ‘memoirs’. Jock organised the competition for Amateur Singles in 1932, the first year in which the winner’s trophy was the newly presented Jesters Club Cup. Invitations to compete were published in ‘Squash Rackets, Fives, Tennis and Rackets’. When one of the game’s larger-than-life characters, an Old Alleynian called Freddie Vogler, saw that the competition was to be played on weekday mornings when he, as an employee of Westminster Bank, might find it hard to get the necessary time off work, he exclaimed “Ha! It’s for the Aristos!” – not surprisingly, as Jock’s postal address to which entries should be sent was Salisbury Tower, Windsor Castle, Berks. The reason for this ‘aristocratic’ address was that Jock’s father, as Architect to the Office of Works, enjoyed the privilege of a set of grace and favour chambers in that royal abode.

1932 Jock playing cricket at Ascot

In the early days of his presidency of CURFC, not only did Jock still play occasionally but he also attended the Varsity Match to give support to the Club he presided over. Dickie Clarke has a clear memory of Jock attending the match in 1950, giving encouragement to Dickie and his partner, Tony Harlow, in their tussle with Oxford’s third and fourth pairs. “Jock was always a master of absolute composure, but there was one occasion when he displayed a touch of excitement. Tony Harlow and I, bringing up the rear and responding to the encouragement of Jock and other Cambridge supporters, played above ourselves and helped Cambridge to victory by an overall 6 points. Jock’s generous words meant a huge amount to Tony and me at the time.” In fact they contributed 27 points to the victory! Presumably Jock got to matches, such as that at Bedford Modern School in 1950, by car. I found it hard to imagine the Jock I knew as a motorist until I found a photograph of him in his Jesters scrapbook. It was taken in 1931 and shows him standing in cricket gear in front of what appears to be a Coventry-built Swift 4P / 10 hp Tourer. He must have been one of a select band of young men – he was an undergraduate at the time – to possess such a classic car. In later years Jock no longer travelled to Varsity Matches, which took place on more far-flung courts such as Whitgift, Roehampton, Merchant Taylors’ or Alleyn’s. As a young President he held the AGM of the Club in his rooms at Magdalene but by the 1960s, when I first came to know him, he preferred to entertain the players at his house across the Cam in Selwyn Gardens.

1931 Jock with his Swift 4P Tourer

28, Selwyn Gardens – and, later, Grange House – was a cross between Mecca and a haven, though perhaps with more pilgrims than refugees. Every evening in term-time, between six and seven, there could be found a gathering of mostly young people, of both sexes – unusual in an age when Cambridge was heavily weighted in favour of the male sex – enjoying a glass of sherry and a chat with Jock and Paulie. Some were casual visitors who had dropped in confident in the knowledge that this was open house; others were invited as part of Jock’s grand plan. One of Jock’s roles was that of “keeping an eye” on the offspring of friends and colleagues, perhaps those like Dickie Clarke’s boss, Sir Adrian Cadbury, away on foreign employment of some kind, in their case in Nigeria. If it was not these waifs who sat undergoing Jock’s benign questioning, it was others who had been specifically invited, such as undergraduates from Magdalene or young games players being gently groomed for membership of the Jesters. In a university famous for the recruiting of young men for service in dubious organisations of state, Jock’s activities probably went largely unknown but his influence has remained potent to this day. One subsequent leading light in the Jesters, Gareth Quarry, remembers how, on his first day in Cambridge, he received a hand-written card inviting him to go that very evening to Selwyn Gardens. “I did so, intrigued, never having met Jock before, and Jock set in front of me both a whisky and a sherry decanter, inviting me to take my pick. I selected whisky (something of a novelty to a 19 year-old Fresher!) and was to return 2 or 3 nights a week in term time throughout my three years to have a chat with the great man and, having made my election on that first night, I always found the whisky decanter placed in front of me!” Gareth was Captain of CURFC in 1980-81.

1949 Jock (left) at 75th birthday party for Dr Edgar Cyriax

I myself have a vivid memory of one evening in 1986 when I took a Thames Valley IV to play the Sparrows (an excuse for me to take three young Radleians with aspirations to study at Cambridge) and after the match drove the boys round to Selwyn Gardens. Jock took Andy Olliver, our excellent captain that year, sat him down on the floor at the side of his armchair and gently quizzed him about his Fives and his work and his Social. It was then I realised how adept Jock was at gleaning information about the many schools of which he was a governor, Radley of course being the one closest to his heart. Andy was to play as a freshman in Jock’s final VIII in 1989 and to become Captain in 1991.

While evening gatherings were gentle affairs, Sunday lunches at Jock and Paulie’s were rather more of a bustle. Paulie, aided in serving lasagne, shepherd’s pie or chicken casserole by the headmaster of some prestigious independent school (“You’ll just come and give me a hand, won’t you, Simon?”), fed and watered large gatherings of Jesters, passing preachers, colleagues, wives and relatives most Sundays in term. For Fives players these invitations to sip a schooner of amontillado and enjoy a hot meal in all manner of distinguished adult company were particularly appreciated. Andy Pringle, who these days is General Secretary of the RFA and webmaster of its excellent site, wrote lovingly to me of his memories of such an invitation: “Receiving the invitation was almost a rite of passage for a Fives player and, at each practice, the question would go round, “Have you been invited?” So, when my invitation came, I was in no doubt that it was an honour just to receive it. And, as ever in a situation like that, I can’t for the life of me remember who else was there, or what we spoke about. There are dim memories of tea and cake; perhaps some sherry, too. But, what I do remember is seeing Jock very much in his element, surrounded by happy faces, maybe not taking a great part in the conversation, but just delighted that conversation was taking place.”

The Jock Burnet Trophy, presented by the Jesters, for the Varsity Match (stolen in 2008)

Memories dim but traditions persist. Fives Dinners are comparatively rare events: the Old Merchant Taylors’ Club has a tradition of sporadic – and very convivial – dinners; the RFA has put on a small number of celebratory events over the years; and the Jesters Club has its annual Frank Strawson Memorial Dinner, which games players of all sorts attend. For 60 years CURFC has held an annual fixture consisting of match and dinner (which Dickie Warner has, incidentally, done us the honour of copying at Oxford for some years now). It is called ‘The Past versus Present’. According to the Record Books of the Club there was an attempt in 1948 to introduce a Fives fixture in which a team of past players would play the current VIII, but Jock was unable to raise a side. The event did get off the ground in 1949. Jock and his next year’s Captain, Edward Pease-Watkin, then had the idea of creating a Cambridge second team called the Sparrows so as to enable more fixtures to be played. Moreover, they decided to invite no more than 14 “prominent Cambridge Fives players” to accept honorary membership of the Cambridge University Sparrows Fives Club. Since then, every year a week or two before the Varsity Match, the President has invited a team of 8 previous players, Sparrows as they are still known (though the membership has grown to over 200), to take on the current University VIII, and afterwards a gathering of Sparrows has entertained the present side to dinner. In the early years this happened in The Dorothy, a restaurant in Rose Crescent, described by Simon Langdale as “a kind of up-market Joe Lyons”. Later, with Jock installed as Bursar, it was held at Magdalene College. Each year somewhere between 35 and 50 sit down to dinner in Ramsay Hall. Only twice since 1949 has there been an interruption, once through snow causing the cancellation of the fixture, once through fire in the Magdalene kitchens forcing us to downsize in a local restaurant. In 2011 we were obliged to limit our numbers to 24 so as to fit into the Parlour, but we managed to accommodate a 25^th, CURFC’s reserve, who sneaked in a 3-course Chinese take-away under the complicit eye of the ever dependable Magdalene staff.

For forty years Jock ran the Past versus Present; since his death I have had the pleasure of doing so, initially with Richard Morgan. One of the great joys, I am sure, for Jock was the way in which every year a ‘lost’ Sparrow will return to the fold, not having attended the Dinner since going down or perhaps never having played Fives again since his final Varsity Match. Some years a member of the Past will jet in from abroad, combining the Dinner with picking up his offspring at some major boarding school; other years a regular skier will announce that poor snow conditions have caused a change of dates, so that this year he can attend; another time retirement has kicked in and the attraction of a meeting with old friends combines with the natural nostalgia of advancing years. In my own case, immediately after graduation I departed to teach in a foreign university for five years but decided to return for the Dinner in – as ill luck would have it – 1970, the year of the Great Postal Strike. In a world before mobile phones I just turned up on the off chance at Portugal Place to have Jock say “I thought you might be coming back this year; I’ve put you next to a very nice young Alleyn Old Boy.” It was David Hebden, who has become one of the most successful players the game has known and a life-long friend.

The Jock Burnet Trophy for the Varsity Match (since 2009)

1999 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Past versus Present. We thought it might be nice to break with tradition just for once and invite Sparrows to bring wives, girlfriends or guests to mark this momentous date. It was Barry Trapnell, Jock’s successor as President of CURFC, who used his considerable powers of persuasion to get Magdalene to let us have the Hall for the Dinner. 92 members of the Past and their partners entertained the Present VIII in sumptuous style in the candle-lit Hall. Exactly one hundred, it must have been one of the biggest gatherings ever of Fives-playing Jesters and members of the RFA. There were winners of every kind of rugby Fives tournament, singles and doubles, with a representative from virtually every Cambridge side since 1946 when the Varsity Match resumed after the war. Of the 16 players in the original match, won by the Present by 245-243, five sat on High Table fifty years on and a sixth, Anthony Abrahams, would have done, had not the door of his Suffolk cottage blown shut and condemned him to an evening of near-hypothermia in the garden shed rather than an evening of conviviality in Cambridge. One of those original players was Barry Trapnell, himself the winner of the Jesters Cup for Singles and the Cyriax Cup for Doubles in 1949. Another was John Burton, a former President of the RFA. One of the delights of the evening was to see Barry hold up the handsome trophy donated by the Jesters in memory of Jock Burnet which is now played for each year by Oxford and Cambridge: the Jock Burnet Trophy. One couldn’t help feeling that Jock looked down benignly at us from above as we celebrated this extraordinary fixture which now, at Barry Trapnell’s suggestion, bears his name: the Jock Burnet Dinner. In 2009 we celebrated the 60^th anniversary, once more in Magdalene Hall with ladies and guests, some 80 in all.

The Trapnell Tankard for Past versus Present

Jock delighted especially in the Dinner. In particular he took the greatest care to seat the eight undergraduates whom the Past were entertaining in the most appropriate position – and never next to each other. In my freshers year I once told Jock that, as a modern foreign linguist, I saw a career in international banking as a distinct possibility. At my first Dinner, in 1965, I thus found myself sitting next to Jack Davies, oblivious of the fact that not only was he one of the great champions of the 1930s but also Executive Director of the Bank of England. In my second year my interests were turning to the study of literature. I duly found myself seated next to that ‘gentleman publisher’, John Charlton, who made a serious point of seeking my opinion as to the advisability of Chatto and Windus commissioning a new edition of Proust’s monumental work, “A la recherche du temps perdu”. In my final year, as Captain and – unbeknownst to me – a schoolmaster in the making, I sat between Jock and Dennis Silk, later to become my employer as Warden of Radley College. Thus it was with all the young players: economists sat next to accountants, medics beside consultants, engineers by captains of industry, all-round games players with county cricketers, would-be teachers at the side of schoolmasters and independent school heads, of whom there were so many that it was rumoured that they colluded in arranging the first Saturday of half term to coincide with the Past versus Present.

Jock was often deemed a quiet man. He expressed his personality most vividly in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of letters he wrote. Just reading one letter Jock sent in the final year of his life to Dickie Clarke made me realise how little I knew about his private life, his feelings and opinions, despite regular contact with him over a period of nearly 25 years. Simon Langdale quotes a letter of 1972 in which Jock says, “Today the BBC seems to me to be beneath contempt.” Such a political comment was rare indeed. At the Past versus Present Jock seldom made any comment about the play when he made his customary visit to Portugal Place in the course of the afternoon – he just took quiet pleasure in watching those he held in mutual respect and affection playing the game we all love. At the Dinner there were NO SPEECHES. Jock simply sat there next to his Captain and twinkled, having called upon one or other cleric to say Grace and risen just the one more time to propose the Loyal Toast. Even at the Drinks beforehand in the Parlour he listened rather more than he spoke. He wouldn’t dream of coming into The Pickerel before that. Difficult to imagine Jock with a pint in his hand!

Only three times do I know of Jock (nearly) speaking in public. The first time was in 1969 when the Past marked 20 years of his Presidency by presenting him with a silver French beaker from which to drink his favourite tipple. This handsome gift, sourced by Richard Morgan, was inscribed ‘A Present from the Past’, the idea of Simon Langdale. Jock called upon the Captain that year, Chris Hirst, to thank the Past for their generous gift – a clever way of avoiding speechifying himself and the first time anything had been said at the Dinner. The second time was in 1972 when Andrew Cowie won the Amateur Singles while an undergraduate. Andrew’s feat was doubtless worth a Full Blue, but there were moves a foot to reduce the number of Half-Blues given for Fives and Jock reckoned it unwise to apply for a Full Blue, so he gave a special dinner in The Parlour instead and “spoke” in Andrew’s honour. As Andrew recalls, Jock stood up at the end of the meal and said, “Gentlemen, the Toast: The Amateur Champion.” – and that was it. The third time was at the Dinner in 1973 when Dennis Silk presented Jock with a silver salver in recognition of 25 years of the event. In doing so Dennis described the salver, whose purchase and engraving had been organised by the captain, John Harland, as “this exiguous gift”. Forced to respond, Jock claimed it was typical of “these intellectual teachers” to use words which he didn’t understand and the rest of his brief ‘speech’ was drowned in laughter. Things have changed since Jock’s death: Barry Trapnell thought it a good idea if captains were to give a résumé of the season, “just a few words”, a convention that continues to this day – not because we live in an age where the mantra is ‘communication, communication’, but because it is a good way for those who attend the Dinner to hear how the current players are faring, especially with there being no courts in Cambridge since 1995.

“Great communicator” is a term rather debased these days, but such was Jock, and a great mentor. Player after player, in recalling what Jock meant to them, makes this point. One of Jock’s captains, BWJG (Brian) Wilson, devotes several pages in his memoirs (“Experience is an Arch”) to the influence Jock exercised upon him and many others whose lives he touched. Jock it was who steered Brian towards Radley and ultimately into a distinguished career in teaching. Brian pays tribute to Jock as the man who “educated me both socially, in my general reading, and in a broader philosophy of life”. Likewise Edward Pease-Watkin, Jock’s first Captain of Fives, retains an undying affection for the man who gave him “tremendous backing” in building up the Fives Club after the war and subsequently guided him into prep schoolmastering: “I doubt if there has ever been a better listener. … I have been and remain eternally grateful to Jock all my life.” John Ingram, who also devoted his talents to the education of young men, remembers Jock’s “tireless enthusiasm and interest in us as undergraduates on the Fives court”, while Chris Hirst, Headmaster of a Fives-playing school, Sedbergh, fondly remembers Jock taking him to the National Gallery before a Jesters Committee Meeting: “I was introduced to the delights of the gallery – especially (Jock’s favourite) Piero della Francesca and the old Tea Room, moments which awoke in me a deep affection for the NG which I have passed on to my own children.” For Dickie Clarke, Jock played the invaluable role of “a true and kindly mentor, helping me to achieve a sensible balance between my studies and the greater attractions of the sports field”. Hubert Doggart, who managed to combine his studies with a hatful of Blues in various sports and went on to be one of Jock’s many headmasters, regards Jock as the supreme “kingmaker” in the world of schoolmastering, particularly in advising on appointments of headmasters. Brian Wilson recalls a nice anecdote: “Jock had a finger in so many educational pies that one felt he was responsible for almost all appointments in the independent sector. One of us enquired at some point, “Jock, do you appoint everybody?” to which, quick as a flash, he replied, “When I appointed you I began to think I could appoint anybody”, a witticism taken in good part and harmlessly intended.” No doubt elsewhere in this book of tributes there will be much more on Jock’s role in the world of education.

1989 Jock’s last side

This world was not the only one with which Jock was familiar. He knew an awful lot of people, not surprising when one remembers the different spheres of life he had experienced before he came to Magdalene – in teaching, in the Air Ministry, in book-selling and publishing – and how many people he must have met through the club he founded, the Jesters, as well as through his ‘side-line’ as a Director of the publishers, A & C Black, and as editor of The Public Schools Yearbook. And then of course Pauline’s work as Chairman of the Cambridge Health Authority and as a magistrate, not to mention as editor of the Girls’ Public Schools Yearbook, must have widened that range of people even more. And it delighted Jock to be able to introduce one to the other. Brian Wilson tells how, when he was “wrestling with the idea of taking holy orders, Jock passed me on to Bob Runcie, then Principal of Cuddesdon, later Archbishop of Canterbury… . Jock knew all the right people, not in the snobbish sense; rather, thanks to his wide acquaintance, he knew who would be best placed by reason of experience and position to give sound advice and assistance. He gave this sort of practical help to many and remained a friend to all of us long after we had gone down.”

One story told me by a former Captain illustrates the powerful effect that help from Jock could have: “It was towards the end of my second year of reading Law, when law students’ attention typically turns to the tortuous process of applying for Articles, a training contract, with a law firm after graduation. Only a week earlier Jock had enquired as to my plans following Cambridge and I had outlined my intention to seek Articles in the City and qualify as a solicitor. So it was that I received a letter from a senior partner (no less!) of one of the pre-eminent City law firms saying that he had heard good things about me from his great friend, Jock Burnet, and would I care to take the train down to London to meet with him and a number of his senior partners. This was unusual on at least two fronts – senior partners rarely become involved in the recruitment of mere articled clerks and it was unheard-of for a firm to make the approach to the plebeian clerk-in-waiting! I duly went and, instead of the usual hoops, attended a very convivial, relaxed discussion and was offered a position on the spot.”

The world of Fives is small; almost everybody knows everybody else. If they haven’t played against them or seen them in action, they will have heard of them. If they are no longer with us, they will have left a legacy. Thus the names of Dr Edgar Cyriax and ‘Pussy’ Malt resonate through the history of the Rugby Fives Association; Wayne Enstone, still playing, defined the Manchester style of play; Alastair Mackenzie embodies St. Paul’s and Oxford Fives; David Gardner is BUSA; every club has its elder statesman. Great players such as Cambridge’s own Jack Davies, Kenneth Gandar Dower, Dick Knight, John Pretlove, Andrew Cowie and David Hebden have had a profound effect on others in challenging and inspiring them to reach the heights they themselves attained. All of them, whether deceased, retired or still playing, are part of the psyche of the game. Jock is one of these influential people, not only for those who knew him but also for today’s players.

Jock in later years

Jock’s Fives legacy is two-fold. For Oxford the legacy is in bricks and mortar: when Oxford set up an Appeal to raise money for two glass-backed courts at Iffley Road in 1988, Jock threw himself into the project and – if we are to believe the obituary published in the Daily Telegraph – he raised more funds from former Cambridge players than the entire Oxford contribution. For Cambridge Jock’s legacy is an intangible yet enduring presence. Andy Pringle, who played in Jock’s last Varsity Match, put it nicely: “Such was Jock’s influence that, to this day, CURFC and the Jesters still feel his presence. And, yes, that includes players who weren’t even a glint in the milkman’s eye when Jock left us. That benign expression, imbued with happiness and satisfaction, looks through the years at us and even now there’s part of Jock in every Cambridge Fives player.”