Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2020

37 www.sheffieldcricketlovers.org.uk Sadly departed this year... February Jan Shaw May Malcolm Ackroyd Dennis Silk CBE , who died in June at the age of 87, was an honorary member of our Society despite spending his playing career in the west country. A schoolmaster, he was a successful amateur representing Somerset between 1956 and 1960, averaging 33.54 as a stylish, right-handed, opening batsman. He was a talented all- round sportsman at Cambridge University, winning Blues for cricket and rugby, and a half Blue for rugby fives. On graduating Dennis began a teaching career at Marlborough College. During his time in First Class cricket he played alongside the likes of Bill Alley and Maurice Tremlett who took the young schoolmaster under their wing. His teaching career took him from Marlborough to Radley College where he was Warden from 1968-1991, but he still found time during the holidays to captain MCC tours to New Zealand and Canada. He served for two years as President of the MCC and chaired the TCCB from 1994- 96. In 1995, Dennis was made a CBE for services to cricket and education, in addition to which he held the position of Governor of l Zingari until 2015. Dennis wrote two books on the game he loved - Cricket (Hart Davis, 1964) and Attacking Cricket (Pelham, 1965). Robert ‘Bob’ Jackson , who passed away at 88 in July, was one of Sheffield’s best-known local media operators and inventor of the football phone-in, ‘Praise or Grumble’, devised whilst working as a sports producer at BBC Radio Sheffield. ‘Bob ’was at the station for 20 years, from 1972, but as a former teacher and long-time community worker, it was but one string to his bow. After attending Abbey Lane Junior School and King Edward VII School, he became a clerk at Sheffield Town Hall, before completing his National Service in the Navy and training as a PE teacher at the Sheffield Collegiate site. After teaching at Grimesthorpe Juniors, Sheffield, he worked in the family fruit and veg business and eventually turned his love of sport into a broadcast career, first in hospital radio and then at the BBC. A President of the Sheffield and District Parks Bowling Association, Robert was a key figure at the Millhouses Bowling Club and a past chairman of the British Crown Green Bowling Association. For many years he chaired the Sheffield Marathon organising committee; a former chair of the Sheffield Bench and a sitting magistrate; a member of the Sheffield Probus Club and of the Rotary Club of Sheffield, which awarded him the Paul Harris Fellowship Award for services to the organisation. Robert received an honorary degree from Sheffield Hallam University for Services to Sport, and was a former governor at Sir Harold Jackson School and Jordanthorpe/Meadowhead Secondary. Aug Michael Hall November David Drabble (founder of SCLS)