Remember

On March 5, 1888 - a blustery spring day in west Yorkshire - the population of the small industrial town of Earlsheaton increased by one. Into the world emerged an addition to the family Jeeves to which the proud parents attached the forename Percy.
As Mother and Father gazed lovingly at the infant before them, they had no way of knowing that into the world had arrived a special talent. A touch of genius. An innate cricketing flair that would grow and blossom and bring them great joy and pride - only to be hideously stolen away just as it was about to truly flourish.
Percy Jeeves was born in the heart of cricket country - Yorkshire, though still to win the county championship, nurtured massive enthusiasm for the sport - though not to a cricket family. Neither his father nor two brothers showed any aptitude for the game.
Why, then, this slightly-built boy should display immense natural ability as soon as he was old enough to hold bat and ball was a mystery.
Percy shone on the school field at Earlsheaton. He hit the ball cleanly and hard while his bowling, with accuracy and swerve at just fast of medium pace, was too much for his young peers. When the Jeeves family moved to Goole, on Humberside, Percy, aged 13, switched to Alexander Street School.
His exploits there immediately attracted the attention of the town's cricket team and within a year he made his debut for Goole Cricket Club's 2nd XI. Pitched in for his first taste of adult cricket before his 15th birthday he secured a debut haul of six for 25.
A popular boy, without a trace of arrogance despite his talent, Jeeves was soon elevated to Goole 1sts. His explosive batting was always a threat but his bowling was clearly special. With a smooth approach and fluid action in delivery, he could move the ball both ways. Many senior batsmen were confounded by his variations and it occurred to the boy's family that he might even make a living from the sport.
An opportunity soon knocked. Sports-mad Percy was an avid reader of Athletic News and he spotted an advertisement placed by Hawes Cricket Club for a professional. The young man eschewed his intrinsic modesty to outline his credentials in a letter of application and Hawes were impressed enough to appoint him.
They never regretted their decision. In his first season with Hawes, the maturing teenager ripped out 65 wickets at 7.5 each. Word spread. Yorkshire, by now English cricket's dominant force having won seven of the previous 11 championships, invited him for a trial.
Jeeves recalled: 'Mr H Arden Crallon, the captain of the Hawes club, who was a fine fast bowler in his day, recommended me to the county club. He also went with me to Harrogate where I was tried. Mr G J V Weigall, the Kent amateur, was in charge but I was evidently not thought much of as I heard nothing further.'
There, in 1910, was Yorkshire's opportunity to engage this rising talent. Their failure proved to be Warwickshire's gain, thanks to a chance meeting of two strangers in the heart of the Yorkshire dales.
'Mr Ryder, the secretary to the Warwickshire club, was spending his holidays in Wensleydale during the Autumn of 1910,' said Jeeves. 'While playing a round of golf he was introduced to Mr Crallon. Naturally the conversation soon turned to cricket and my captain strongly recommended me as a man for Warwickshire.'
So Jeeves bade farewell to Hawes. He packed his kit-bag and, furnished with the love and good wishes of his family - and some cheese sandwiches for the journey - he took a train south to seek his fortune with Warwickshire.
He was joining a county which, first-class for only 17 years, had scrambled to 14th place in the championship in 1910 but were about to undergo one of the most remarkable transformations in cricket history.

Percy Jeeves barely registered on the Edgbaston spectrum as he settled into his new county during the summer of 1911. Great exploits, however, unfolded around him as Warwickshire, under the captaincy of inspirational all-rounder Frank Foster, charged to their first county championship title.
After a thoroughly desultory 1910 season, the Bears again started slowly before hitting form in mid-summer. In all, they recorded 13 victories, the last of which - an innings-and-35-run triumph at Northampton - wrested top spot from long-time leaders, and champions for the previous two seasons, Kent. It was a remarkable surge of form and the most emphatic statement that Warwickshire County Cricket Club, still adolescent in first-class terms, had truly arrived in English cricket.
While Foster's men charged to the championship, the new recruit spent his time tidying the ground, selling scorecards and net-bowling to the amateurs (he bowled well within himself to permit the esteemed gentry the sound of ball on bat). Jeeves still had to reside long enough in the county to be eligible for championship cricket and anyway, aged 23, was still learning.
He served diligently on the groundstaff under groundsman John Bates whose sons, Harold and Len, became his friends. Warwickshire lent Jeeves to Moseley for experience in the tough training ground of the Birmingham League. He thrived. His debut, against Studley, brought him a spectacular 106 runs and six wickets for 38. Selected for the Rest of the League against champions Walsall, he struck an unbeaten 74 and took seven for 19.
Clearly here was a major talent and in 1912, though Jeeves was still not qualified to play in the championship, Warwickshire were eager to test him against top opposition. That season brought a revolutionary triangular Test tournament to England which meant that two touring sides - Australia and South Africa - visited Edgbaston. Jeeves played against both.
Pitched in against the Australians at the end of May, Jeeves joined the championship-winning bowling attack of Foster, Frank Field, William Hands, Syd Santall and Willie Quaife. In front of 10,000 spectators, the debutant, batting at No 8, had his first first-class innings terminated by a run-out with just a single to his name.
He fared even more thinly in the second innings, bagging a duck, but impressed with the ball. Brought on fourth change, he soon snared Charles Kelleway, caught behind by Tiger Smith, for 17 - his initial first-class victim on the way to figures of 14-3-35-2. An excellent, fluctuating three-day game was approaching a splendid climax with Australia wobbling at 43 for three in pursuit of 116 (Jeeves still to bowl), when a thunderstorm washed out play at teatime on the final day.
The South Africans visited Edgbaston a month later. This time, Jeeves scored nine and 15 and ousted George Faulkner in a spell of 4-0-12-1 as South Africa eased to a six-wicket victory.
Warwickshire found defending the title a tougher proposition than winning it. They won only six of 22 matches and slipped to ninth with Foster's explosive but mercurial talents already waning. There was a vacancy for a buccaneering all-rounder and, when the following season arrived, Jeeves had qualified to fill it.
His championship debut arrived in the opening match of the 1913 season, a rain-affected draw with Worcestershire at Dudley. Jeeves scored only five but registered impressive figures of 11.4-4-29-3 and 22-15-23-1. Next, against Leicestershire at Edgbaston, his batting potential was unveiled with hard-hit innings of 46 and 23. His explosive hitting was illustrated by a mighty six, clear over the pavilion, which deposited the ball in the Edgbaston Road. He added match figures of eight for 61 to hurry Warwickshire to a 271-run win.
Jeeves was underway. Two matches against Hampshire brought him 15 wickets. Against mighty Kent, at Tonbridge, he took four for 32 to limit Kent to 132 and secure Warwickshire a first-innings lead of 130 (though it then went seriously pear-shaped for the Bears. Left-armers Colin Blythe and Frank Woolley each took five for eight to skittle them for 26 before Kent, needing 147 on a dodgy wicket were blazed to victory by Woolley's unbeaten 76 in 80 minutes).
Jeeves' maiden fifty - exactly 50 out of 246 - arrived against Leicestershire at Hinckley on July 12. It included some spectacular hitting in a partnership of 95 in 45 minutes with Crowther Charlesworth.
Successive matches brought Jeeves 53 and five for 84 against Lancashire at Old Trafford, match figures of 10 for 114, including seven for 34, against Worcestershire at Edgbaston then, most pleasing of all, an unbeaten 86 in 105 minutes against his native Yorkshire at Edgbaston.
The young tyro had negotiated the leap from club to three-day cricket with panache - and lots of hard work. He was always ready and willing to bowl, an attribute which cemented his popularity with his colleagues. A true team man, he ended the season with 765 runs at 20.13 and, though much over-bowled having pounded his way through 780 overs, was leading wicket-taker with 106 at 20.88.
They were figures which earned Jeeves his county cap and he could hardly believe his graduation to first-class cricket had been so swift and successful.
'I never dreamed of getting anywhere near my 100 wickets,' he said. 'In fact, at the commencement of the season, I bet one of my colleagues a sovereign that I did not play in more than a dozen county matches. I quite enjoyed handing over that quid!'
During the winter Jeeves, also a talented footballer, played for Stirchley Co-operatives in the Birmingham Wednesday League. Another avenue of professional sport was open to him, but he chose not to pursue it.
'Aston Villa asked me to play in the reserves,' he said, 'but I have no wish to take the game professionally, as I think the strain of playing the two games would be too much for me.'
Shrewd move. Jeeves' advance continued in 1914. He took 85 championship wickets at 19.50 and scored 403 runs. England had no Tests scheduled that summer or he would have been pushing hard for a place. Instead, he received the next most important accolade; selection for one of the prestige matches of the season, the Players against the Gentlemen at the Oval.
Great players lined up on both sides. Among those parking their trousers alongside Jeeves in the Players' (professionals) dressing-room were Jack Hobbs, Frank Woolley, George Gunn, Herbert Strudwick and Jeeves' Warwickshire team-mate Jack Parsons. The opposing Gentlemen (amateurs) included C B Fry, Gilbert Jessop, Percy Fender, 'Plum' Warner and Reginald Spooner.
The Players batted first in front of 8,000 people and Jeeves, from No 9, contributed 11. He then took one for 24 in 13.2 testing overs. Second time around, the Players declared at 302 for six leaving the Gentlemen 393 to win. Now Jeeves took centre stage.
He took out thye top three batsmen - Spooner, Doug Robinson and Fry - then came back to clean bowl Arthur Jaques as the Gents were skittled for 151. After victory had been secured by Jeeves' four for 47, the Players' team returned to the pavilion behind him. Some of England's finest were led in by this self-effacing Yorkshireman.
The verdict of former England captain Pelham Warner, having faced Jeeves, was that he would soon play for England. Instead, within a month, the First World War was underway. Jeeves, bat swapped for bayonet, would soon be fighting, and dying, for England.

The First World War was barely months old before the conflict on the Western Front had been fought to a savage standstill. Trench warfare, with all its horror and futility, was established. This would not be a short war.
By the winter of 1915, opposing soldiers faced each other over narrow, battered strips of No Man's Land. Ruined, battled-scarred ground which had already exchanged hands countless times.
Soldiers, living in perpetual fear for their lives, were further tormented by appalling weather; biting cold with ceaseless rain which swept down, churning the earth to a morass of freezing mud. Into the teeth of this hell, in November, was thrust Percy Jeeves.
Fifteen months earlier, Jeeves had been quick to put his cricket aspirations aside to answer his country's call. He joined the Birmingham Pals, along with Warwickshire team-mates Harold and Len Bates. They became part of the 2nd Birmingham Battalion, the 15th Royal Warwickshire Regiment; a diverse mass of volunteers - from sportsmen to shopkeepers, unemployed to barristers and chimney-sweeps to river-wideners - from the West Midlands area.
On Saturday October 12 1914, this mass of humanity assembled on the quadrangle of Birmingham General Hospital, ready to leave for training. Huge crowds cheered and waved as Jeeves and the rest of the brave boys marched through the city to Edgbaston Park for some basic drill instruction before moving off for further training at Sutton Park.
For six months the novice soldiers stayed local, already involved in what was euphemistically referred to 'advanced training.' Proudly kitted out in their Kitchener Blue uniforms, they were inspected by General Pitcairn Campbell (GOC Southern Command) in a parade at Calthorpe Park. The lambs were getting ready for slaughter.
At the end of May 1915, Jeeves was part of a mass relocation of 12 Birmingham Pals battalions. They decamped to the grounds of Bolton Hall, near Leyburn, in picturesque Wensleydale. Four weeks there was followed by a move south for final training at Codford Camp on the southern edge of Salisbury Plain.
Next came France. The 15th Royal Warwicks were finally pitched into the internecine slaughter of the Western Front in the closing weeks of 1915.
Somehow, for months, Private 611 Jeeves survived. Even through the appallingly ill-conceived Somme offensive on July 1, when 60,000 men perished in a single day, he emerged unscathed. It seemed his luck was holding, but the generals had other actions in mind.
On the morning of July 21, a conference attended by all the Corps Commanders of the British Fourth Army decided that the next offensive would centre, next day, on the German-held Switch Line, another arm of the Somme battleground. A preliminary attack would take place on Wood Lane - an adjacent 500-yard stretch of farm track running south-east from High Wood.
Wood Lane, occupied by well-established German troops, had already been the site of bitter fighting. Attacks on the previous two nights had brought the Devons and Gordons Highlanders heavy losses. Now it was the turn of the Royal Warwicks and Royal West Kents.
An artillery bombardment, in theory to blow the German forces away so that the British infantry could then advance unopposed, began on the Switch Line at 4.30pm. At 8pm, two hours before the attack, the barrage was diverted to Wood Lane.
The 14th Royal Warwicks and 1st Royal West Kents prepared to 'go over.' At 9pm the 15th Royal Warwicks, including Jeeves, moved into reserve. They sat propped against the corpse-filled muddy walls of old German trenches along the Longueval-Bazentin Le-Grand Road. As they waited, the ground shook beneath them with the thunder of artillery fire.
By 10pm the last daylight had just disappeared from a perfect July day. On the stroke of ten, whistles sounded along hundreds of yards of the British line parallel to Wood Lane. Men rose from their crouched positions and moved forward.
It took seconds for the horrible truth to become clear. The artillery barrage had failed. It had totally missed Wood Lane, at either end of which were positioned German machine-gunners enjoying a perfect view of the pathetic figures approaching through the cornfield below.
In the light of German star shells, British soldiers offered perfect silhouetted targets into which the machine-gunners sent a murderous hail of bullets. Within minutes 194 men lay dead and hundreds more were injured.
At 11.50pm Percy Jeeves was among two companies from the 15th Royal Warwicks which moved up to join the disastrous offensive. They stumbled forward, totally disorganised in the darkness. They lumbered towards the hail of metal flying in their direction and added their lives to the catalogue of those sacrificed.
Another disastrous attack had deprived hundreds more families of their loved ones and, at some point in the bloody shambles, Percy Jeeves's family was added to those bereaved.
No trace of Jeeves was found. He has no grave as his bones remain, like many thousands of others, forever lost beneath the farmland of the French countryside.

The 1917 Wisden Cricketer's Almanack lists details of 461 cricket-related servicemen killed in action. The 225th of these entries begins 'Percy Jeeves (Royal Warwickshire Regiment) was killed on July 22, England losing a cricketer of whom very high hopes had been entertained.'
His name never did appear on the scorecard of an England cricket team. It is inscribed, instead, on the Thiepval Memorial.