As my local paper, the Sheffield Morning Telegraph, put it: 'Had not Lindrum arrived in England when he did, most of our attention would have been taken up by Joe Davis. Unfortunately the time for Joe to take over the highest honours of the game in England coincided with the visit of the Australian. Lindrum spoilt everything.'
They could say that again.
Yet, taking the wider view, Walter's visit was a great benefit. It breathed new life into the game, re-aroused the interest of the crowds and, from my own standpoint, forced me to reassess my performance and make me work at my game with renewed vigour just when I might have rested overmuch on my laurels.
It was good news, therefore, when Walter announced that he would again invest in the fare to England in the autumn to join in the 1930-1 season. And it was particularly good news that he elected on this occasion to come in a freelance capacity; that is, not tied to the apron strings of Willie Smith and Burroughes and Watts. It was not simply that he and Willie could not get along together personally; more crucially Walter was dissatisfied with his financial situation at the end of the previous gruelling season. He attracted all the headlines, and thanked the British public and Press for their enthusiastic support, but a weighty book of newspaper cuttings was no substitute for a weighty wallet.
It is impossible for me as an outsider and at this distance in time to assess the merits of Walter's case-especially since Walter was hopelessly erratic in money matters and in later years declined all manner of incredibly attractive propositions. But he claimed that the financial disappointment originated with Burroughes and Watts for failing to obtain star billing before his arrival. Willie Smith, of course, knew only too well that Walter was good enough to give him a hefty start yet, as Walter saw it, he was treated as just another player. 'When I arrived in England,' Walter said, 'we were met by about half a dozen people. And instead of boosting me I was made out to be just another player from Australia. Even when I beat Smith in the first three games I was still just a player to Burroughes and Watts. They should have starred me early in the tour, and should have opened with me in London for the first two months. They would have sold thousands of one guinea seats before I struck a ball. But I was kept out of the limelight and sent to Glasgow, Newcastle and Leeds.' This, in fact, was the nub of his argument; that hundreds of people watched him, having happily paid a shilling while many thousands more were turned away who would willingly have paid five shillings. This situation he largely attributed to the influence of Willie who, to ensure a full house, insisted on charging only a shilling a seat. He was, quite simply, overcautious.
The upshot of these grumbles was that for his second tour Walter was signed up to play with Tom Newman, Clark McConachy and myself. A special contest - christened the Empire Tournament in honour of McConachy, the New Zealander, and Lindrum, the Australian - was organised between us by Bill Camkin, acting on behalf of Reddaway and Co. of Pendleton, Lancashire, who were the developers and manufacturers of a new billiard-cloth, called the Janus cloth. This was made entirely of cotton (logically, in view of its county of origin) whereas billiard-cloths had previously always been woollen, and the makers were simply after the publicity that could be derived from having top players using their product. We were happy to oblige by competing for the gold cup which they put up - playing each other twice at the larger provincial centres, for the most part under the eagle eye of referee Arthur Goundrill.
Just before Christmas 1930 the tournament ended, oddly, in a triple tie: Lindrum, Tom Newman and myself had each won four games and lost two. In aggregate points Tom came out top, having scored 165,000 points, with me second and Walter third. However it must be remembered that Walter's points were those he actually scored, whereas the rest of us received 7,000 from him in each game. In reality Walter scored 34,000 points more than Tom, and 41,000 more than me.
At one point nothing seemed less likely than that Lindrum would share first place with Tom and myself. In his last heat of the tournament his opponent, Clark McConachy, was playing so well that his scoring rate was virtually identical to Lindrum's in fact, during the first six days of the match Walter had managed to pull back only 108 of the 7,000 points that he was conceding. Yet by a sheer effort of will he began to creep up on Mac and then in the space of one memorable day, December 16th, he slashed the arrears from some 5,160 to 1,163. In the afternoon he went to the table to build on an infant run of 3 and in an hour and three-quarters extended it to 2,378 unfinished - a world record for a single session's play. His first 1,000 took thirty-nine minutes and included two runs of over 100 cannons. The spectators loved it; this is what they had come to see. They frequently interrupted play with bursts of applause and cheered when Walter reached his second 1,000. Although Walter must obviously have been tired after his record session underneath the hot lights he returned to the table in the evening apparently as fresh as a daisy and proceeded to rattle off another 1,000 points. In the course of this he passed the record break of 3,304 made by W. J. Peall, the 'Mighty Atom', before the spot stroke was restricted - and there was then nothing more for him to do by way of breaking records. He continued playing so brilliantly that it seemed as if he might go on forever and that Mac might just as well have returned to his hotel waiting to be called back to the table a week or so later. But the human frame can stand only so much concentration. When Walter was going for a loser into a middle pocket he missed, and although he made a lucky cannon instead the balls were left in such a bad position that he could manage to scramble only a few more cannons before the break finally broke down. He had created a magnificent new record of 3,905. From this point onwards in the match he played like a true master and trounced McConachy by over 6,000 points.
It was fortunate that by this time the policy had become established of playing matches by time ('time-limit' games) instead of by points scored. In the twenties matches had a target of a specified number of points - 16,000, 18,000 and so on - and the leading player had only to make, say, 666 points a session. Now the winner was the player with most points at the final expiration of time. Had Lindrum been restricted to a certain number of points per session, those sessions would have been astonishingly brief and his break of 3,905 would consequently have taken about three days to compile. Conversely of course, on the 'chicken and the egg' principle, it could be argued that the new playing conditions themselves led to big breaks by encouraging speed.
Be that as it may, there was just no holding Walter that season. He made the 1,000 break even more a matter of custom than he had the year before and against me in Edinburgh in January 1931 he made the 150th four-figure break of his career. Of these, 110 had been made in Britain since he had been brought over by Willie the previous season; in actual playing time no more than ten months.
He put the finishing touches to his season by winning the nine-day playoff for the Empire Tournament in dramatic style against Tom Newman at Thurston's in February. The now-familiar pattern was repeated. Tom, playing at his best, went ahead in the early stages and, with his 7,000 start was very soon more than 9,000 points in the lead. But then Walter began to strike back through his customary 1,000 breaks, in all making seven during the match and showing the sort of form which made Press commentators say that he would soon achieve the 4,000 break and might even go on to make 5,000. On the evening of the last Friday Walter finally took a narrow lead of 248, and while this still left Tom in with a good chance on Saturday afternoon he mulled it. On his first visit to the table he scored only 3 while Walter followed immediately with a killing 1,163. In the event, Tom scored barely 300 in the afternoon session while Walter coasted to nearly 1,400. Finally, in the evening, Walter took his score past the 25,000 mark to beat Tom by 1,371 points. It was rightly acclaimed as an astonishing victory. More significantly it was beginning to look as though 7,000 was an insufficiently large start for anyone playing Walter.
He crowned his triumphant two seasons in Britain a few days after winning the gold cup, by being invited to Buckingham Palace to play a 'command' exhibition before King George V and Queen Mary on the King's private table. The King, like his father before him, was an enthusiast and had been following the Empire Tournament closely. Walter played for an hour, demonstrating his nursery cannons in particular and performing some trick shots. He was only the second pro to be honoured with a command performance and was rewarded - in similar style to his predecessor, Arthur Goundrill - with a set of gold and enamel cuff links. While Walter was down at the Palace a thousand enthusiasts were gathering in Wolverhampton in the vain expectation of seeing him in play against Clark McConachy. He had to cancel the afternoon session but managed to race back from the royal presence to begin the evening session an hour later than scheduled.
There was no doubt that Walter would have started favourite if he had decided to enter the 1931 Professional Billiards Championship. But he did not do so. In fact there was no championship event at all that year. And there was no new champion.
This last statement might seem blindingly obvious but, as usual in billiards at this level, the situation was in reality much more complex than it appeared. It divided into two distinct problems and one of them, involving Willie Smith, had its genesis way back in 1920.
The immediate snag was that Walter Lindrum, Mac, Tom Newman and I were under contract to the Janus cloth people who stipulated, not unreasonably, that we should play only on their cloth. The Billiards Association, on the other hand, stipulated the more traditional superfine West of England woollen cloth for the championship (which was scheduled to be played at the Market Hotel in Birmingham's Bull Ring). We were at something of an impasse.
It was at this point that Willie Smith entered the picture. Willie, who had, of course, for a number of years been under contract to Burroughes and Watts had long refused to take part in the championship contest, blaming his absence upon the BA&CC. When he won the championship in 1920, beating Claude Falkiner by 1,500 points, he said he was shocked that members of the public should be asked to pay double prices for their seats - even though this was necessary to cover costs in view of the small seating capacity at Thurston's. Furthermore Willie considered that the share-out of the proceeds was loaded against the interests of the players themselves. In 1923 when Willie again won the title, beating Tom Newman by 820 points, the ruling body, thanks in large measure to Willie's persistence, actually invested the players with the responsibility for managing the whole tournament and the six entrants (the others being Falkiner, Inman, Reece and Stevenson) did rather well out of it. But the following year, for reasons that were never made clear, the BA&CC again assumed full control, a move with which Willie disagreed so profoundly that he withdrew from the competition, vowing never to return to it until he and the other players were once again given some degree of financial control.
Why then, in 1931, did he suddenly elect to take part in the championship, since the Billiards Association had in no way altered their stance? The reason that he gave - as usual in a contentious way and in this particular instance via an article in the Empire News - was that he had long since pledged himself to defend the good name of the British billiards championship should it ever be threatened by any Wild Colonial Boy - even to the extent of forgetting his quarrel with the Billiards Association.
Lindrum, with Tom Newman and myself, had announced that he had no intention of entering for the 1931 championship unless the BA&CC could be induced to change their cloth conditions. But this still left, as the foreign peril, Clark McConachy who was wavering somewhat, keeping his options open. Willie stated that he had no wish to see the title go to the Antipodes by default and so on the day before entries officially closed (December 31st, 1930) he put his £50 entrance fee in the post from Glasgow, where he was playing, to pre-empt any attempt by Mac to slip in his entry at the last second. He need not have bothered with these subtle ploys, for at the very moment that Willie was putting his cheque in the pillar box the BA&CC were deciding to extend until January 21st the period during which entries could be accepted. This, of course, infuriated Willie who saw it as yet another stab in the back by his implacable adversaries at the Billiards Association and a further example of their pandering to the 'Big Four' as he called us. Meanwhile, as if to prove his point, the Association told us they were prepared to change the venue of the championship from Birmingham and offered to allow half the matches to be played on a napless cloth. But these negotiations broke down and so Willie, still complaining vociferously about the Association's bending the knee to the 'Big Four', was left as the sole entrant. His cheque had been accepted and held for three weeks; he in turn had, by entering, accepted the Association's conditions - but he had no opposition.
This was not a situation without parallel, however. Harry Stevenson was twice given the championship and Mel Inman once, when they were the sole entrants. Indeed it was because Willie knew this that he had gone to such lengths to ensure that Mac did not benefit similarly. But this time the BA & CC decided on a different course of action. They declared the competition null and refused to award Willie the title. Instead, I retained it by default. And Willie, infuriated and disgusted, vowed once more never to play in the championship.
He wrote in his mouthpiece, the Empire News: 'I suppose that after all that has happened the Secretary of the BA&CC will have the audacity to send me an invitation to enter the championship competition next season. He would be well advised to save himself the trouble and not to incur the expense of postage.
He was as good as his word and next year was nowhere to be seen upon the championship horizon. I was left defending my title against Clark McConachy in March 1932. In so doing I was really on a hiding to nothing. I was, after all, the defending champion and a defeat at the hands of Mac - quite on the cards as he was putting away four-figure breaks quite regularly - would have been a serious blow to my prestige. However I tried not to worry overmuch about this possibility and duly won by 25,161 to 19,259, a convincing margin of nigh on 6,000.
In other aspects, however, the fortnight's match at Thurston's was totally unsatisfactory. After the deduction of expenses I earned less than £10. In other words I was working for £5 a week. I could have made a good deal more touring the clubs.
Shortly afterwards, I found myself defending my snooker title also against Mac. This was a significant occasion since Mac was the first of the big names to grace the snooker championship with their presence. And he was the first of many; never again did I defend my title against a 'second division' opponent. However I am bound to record that snooker was not Mac's strong point and, in the final, now with an increased number of frames, I won comfortably by 30 to 19 - in one game making a break of 99, a championship record, before accidentally snookering myself.
I was certainly playing good snooker in early 1932, though I do say so myself. My most pleasing game took place at the unlikely venue of the Rhodes Reading Room at Middleton, near Manchester, where I was playing the Manchester pro Jimmy Harris. I went to the table first and split the reds, after which Harris potted a red followed by a pink. Then, when he broke down, I stepped in and potted everything in sight: fourteen reds followed by ten blacks, two pinks, a blue and a brown, and then all the pool balls in sequence. My break was 132, just 15 short of the maximum which (leaving aside penalty points which one might have gained) is 147; every red followed by a black and then all the colours to finish. Unhappily, since it was not made on a standard championship table, my 132 was not allowed to stand for record purposes, that honour remaining with an earlier break of mine of 105. But it set the billiards and snooker world by the ears.
However I was unquestionably on the wrong side when a much more memorable break was made. This was in January 1932 in a match between Walter Lindrum and myself at Thurston's. It was on the afternoon of Tuesday 19th that Walter went to the table and embarked upon a break that was to take him the rest of the day - and even then he had not finished. In fact he reached 3,151 while I, sitting in the stalls, practically wore out a pair of trousers, the only slight compensation being the saving on cue chalk.
Hours before the match was due to resume on the Wednesday afternoon people began to arrive in the hope of gaining admission to watch Walter's assault on his own world record of 3,905, scored the previous season against Clark McConachy. For many of them it was a vain hope; the hall was crowded by midmorning, the corridors of Thurston's were like an Underground station in the rush hour and the queues spilled over on to the pavement outside. There were enough people to fill the Albert Hall. It was a scene of unparalleled enthusiasm.
Walter seemed unperturbed by these scenes but he must nevertheless have been under great strain. The concentration required for billiards and the co-ordination of mind, hands and body over a long period of time are totally exhausting. The sight of the table with its shifting pattern of three balls becomes mesmerising, and on top of everything there is the heat of the lights coupled with the heat of the crowd and the everlasting smoke. Still, Walter had had the benefit of a night's rest and the balls were in a useful position for him as he went to the table in the afternoon. At 3,171 he wriggled out of a potentially tricky situation when all the balls were practically in a straight line and followed up with two strings of cannons to take him to the 3,500 mark. The atmosphere by this time had become electrified, with grunts of anguish from the crowd as balls hovered on the brink of pockets before dropping in, cries of 'oh' from half the spectators as good strokes were made and immediate counter-cries of 'sssh' from the other half. And Walter was becoming increasingly aware of the crowd; it could hardly be avoided.
Then he equalled his current record of 3,905. At this point he stopped, chalked his cue with great deliberation and, grinning to the spectators, played the simplest of cannons to create a new world record. The house rose to him and for minutes cheered his performance. As the cheering subsided there were eager cries of 'speech, speech' and other shouts of 'no, no' from those who feared that anything so rash and irregular would ruin Walter's concentration. But Walter took the decision out of the hands of the conflicting schools by resting his cue on the floor and, with a gesture calling for silence, he said simply: 'I thank you most heartily for your appreciation of my break. I can assure you that it is only possible to make such a break before an attentive audience such as you have shown yourself to be. I am proud to have broken the record in London again.'
He then resumed, unperturbed, and passed the 4,000 mark before one of the object balls ran slightly too far leaving him with an extremely difficult cushion cannon. He took the short rest to play the shot but failed by a coat of paint. His break then stood at 4,137 - a new record which left Walter feeling, as he put it, 'as exhausted and as limp as a piece of chewed string'.
This, I must say, was nothing to the way I myself felt at that moment. I had sat out two and a half sessions and was now expected, as the saying goes, to 'follow that!' It was a terrible feeling. The eyes of the spectators seemed to be boring into the back of my neck. But somehow I put my game together and soon the balls were running very sweetly. By the end of the afternoon session I had actually managed to pass the 1,000 mark and reach 1,131 unfinished. This I continued for a quarter of an hour in the evening to take the break to 1,247 before failing at a red loser. It was the first occasion in which opponents had ever made successive four-figure breaks - and considering the strain the feat imposed on the second player I was not surprised. Walter received a £100 cheque from Thurston's in recognition of his break. I received a charming note and a pair of diamond and onyx cuff links from a lady supporter! But I had no need of any such welcome gift. I was satisfied with my 1,247 break for its own sake. In many ways I consider it my finest.
After this experience I did not too much lament the fact that Walter had not entered for the championship. Under the auspices of Bill Camkin he and Tom Newman had arranged to leave in February for a three-month tour of Canada and the USA, taking in Montreal and Toronto before visiting New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, quite an ambitious trip for those days.
I remember that while aboard the SS. Bremen from Southampton Tom wrote an article for the News of the World in which he lauded the efforts of Walter and myself, mentioning specifically Walter's 4,137 break and my score of 132 against Jimmy Harris in Middleton. Tom delivered himself of the opinion that, of the two, my snooker break was the more remarkable. It was almost certain, he thought, that Walter would surpass his feat and even top the 5,000 mark while my break was 'so exceptional' that it might never be exceeded or even equalled.
So even the experts can be wrong sometimes. My break was, of course, passed many times by myself and others, whilst neither Walter nor anybody else ever exceeded that magnificent break of which I, like a rabbit in a car's headlights, had been such a horrified yet fascinated spectator.