PETER Metcalfe’s piece about the Settle Optimists in last week’s (June 25) Craven Herald brought back pleasant memories of the cricket scene he described.

The club tie featured a set of cricket stumps with rain pouring down - cricketers always have to be optimists regarding the weather.

I did once play for the Optimists but I was so nervous, awestruck by the responsibility, and simply bad that I, and no doubt others, decided that a cricket-playing role was not for me. (The pinnacle of my sporting career had been reached when I played coarse rugby a few times for the Isle of Wight 1st XV, although I was more usually to be found in the 2nd XV where, unlike cricket, I could “hide” in the pack so that my enthusiastic incompetence was less obvious).

I did however become an occasional Optimists “supporter” and, even more occasionally, a scorer, and I visited, with them, a number of the village cricket pitches referred to in the article.

Some of the pitches were beautifully situated - the setting of Downham’s pitch was especially appealing, on the shoulder of Pendle Hill.

As Peter says, Bolton-by-Bowland’s original pitch (until 1986) was indeed opposite the church, and just inside the entrance to the grounds of Bolton Hall.

Within the boundary of the pitch was a large tree and, as I recall, local rules dictated that if a ball was hit into the tree the batter would be out if the ball was then caught one-handed.

The main problem was not so much catching the ball as it fell relatively gently from the tree but managing to guess, within a second or two, where it would fall after ricocheting around the many leaf-covered branches.

Although I did not spectate at all matches, I did attend nearly all the Optimists Cricket Club’s annual dinners which were usually held at the Golden Lion in Settle under the jovial eye of then landlord Bernard Houghton.

The various awards and the raffle always produced much hilarity. A number of the awards were unique, one-off, bespoke trophies lovingly created and expertly crafted by team member Jack Jones.

One I remember was for the best bowling with a broken finger, awarded to Andrew Beasley and featuring a remarkably lifelike hand, with a clearly broken finger, wrapped round a cricket ball. There were many others, often relating to particular incidents or events during the season, but all meticulously made.

The raffle, with its many kitsch and tasteless prizes, had one main rule - that nobody who won a prize (and most people did) was permitted to re-submit it to the raffle for at least two years. Amongst my own winning prizes I can count a luridly-coloured pennant from the Isle of Man and a miniature (three-inch) luminous plastic replica of the Eiffel Tower. One “first prize” I particularly remember was a choice between an old Perry Como LP and a bag of horse manure.

The winner chose the latter, assuming it to be a joke, having either forgotten, or been unaware, that our host, Bernard, kept horses in the stable at the back of the pub.

The sack of (fresh) horse manure was duly delivered to the table of the somewhat taken aback prize-winner.

For the record, the names of the players in the front row of the photo accompanying the article, which you seem to have inadvertently omitted, are: John Haines, Jack Jones, June Maxwell, Colin Smith and the author of last week’s piece, Peter Metcalfe.

Dick Newson

Embsay