AT the end of 1934 I travelled home to Britain in hope. I had made a loss on my Australian tour and needed to earn money fast. But when I got there the cupboard was bare.
The history books tell you that the Great Depression had peaked in 1933 and that from then on things improved all round. All I can say is that the historians have never properly consulted professional billiards and snooker players. After arriving home on December 11th I went in search of a crust and one of my first contacts was Bill Camkin. 'Come up and stay with me in Birmingham,' he said at once. 'I'll fix you a week of exhibitions and pay you £30 myself. But times are hard - you'll have to work for it. Leave everything to me.' Thirty pounds was not a fortune, but I would be living rent free and it would put me on my feet. It was a friendly gesture by Bill, though not entirely altruistic; since he was in the billiards trade the fee he paid me and the time he spent organising the week was basically an investment in the promotion of his tables and allied equipment.
When I reached Birmingham, Bill started to outline the week which he had organised for me. 'On Monday morning,' he began, 'there's a factory exhibition for an hour or so, then I've got you a lunchtime show at the Midlands Constitutional Club which I think you'll enjoy, and a bit later you're booked for an exhibition at an afternoon club in the city...'
'Well, that's marvellous,' I said. 'It'll be a change to have no evening shows. Good.'
'Ah well,' said Bill. 'There are in fact a couple of exhibitions at night. Only short ones you know. Just an hour or so each.'
Five exhibitions in one day!
Under cross-questioning Bill confessed that practically every day was as busy as this. I did not mind, of course. I was young and fit - and getting paid. But it indicates the sort of work that even the champion had to put in to rub along in the mid-thirties.
It would be misleading to leave the impression that Britain's economic situation was alone responsible for the struggles of us pros. The truth of the matter is that by the time I returned from Down Under billiards as a spectator sport was dead as mutton. As I have indicated earlier Walter Lindrum, although responsible for its final phrase of popularity, also contributed in large measure to its ultimate demise. He could have played, as Willie Smith did, a wonderfully attractive all-round game - but he had almost a mania about the compilation of massive breaks. I knew and appreciated that they were almost miraculous, but the public became blasé about them. And as more players leapt on to the bandwagon, producing a large number of points but very few thrills, the easier we made it appear. Barring any truly radical change in the rules we had more or less mastered what, in my opinion, is the most scientific game in the world. It was our own fault. In 1933 Walter, Mac, Tom Newman, Willie Smith and I had undoubtedly produced some of the finest billiards the world has ever seen; but we bored the public. As the veteran pro Teddy Diggle commented at the time, in our games there were more cannons than in the 1914-18 war. 'I'm glad I'm not a playing professional now,' he said. 'It's awful. When I was playing it was wonderful if we got a 300 break. Now you don't get a clap from the audience unless you make a break over 1 ,000.'
This to my mind was in many ways a great pity. Because of my snooker success Tom Webster had taken to depicting me in his Daily Mail cartoons as an Arabian Nights potentate, 'The Sultan of Snooker' or 'The Emperor of Pot' (those were more innocent days!). Yet I still retained a great love for billiards - after all, I had, as it were, been brought up on it, and in many ways I enjoyed playing it more; there are so many beautiful shots to be made. But the commercial facts of life have to be faced. As I saw it, the playing public had had enough. Snooker at last had taken over the centre of the stage.
Since we began the championship in 1927 the game had come a long way. Not only were all the top pros now involved but we had pioneered the modern method of playing the game, and I suppose that I was foremost among the technical innovators. Instead of controlling a trickle shot haphazardly I exploited stun and screw more and more. The old type of shot put the cue ball at the mercy of the nap, the state of the cloth and even the weather's effect on it. After travelling, say, a length and a half of the table the cue ball might be two feet away from the desired position. But with stun I could save all that and kill the ball to within an inch. One of the main reasons for this development was not, however, my own brilliance but the introduction in 1929 of the 'Crystalate' balls which were far more receptive than ivories to this treatment - and indeed the marvellous present-day 'Super Crystalate' balls enable the pros to screw the cue ball from quite unimaginable places.
But whatever the cause, it was these strokes which revolutionised the game. The good snooker player today requires three essential skills: the ability to pot, a knowledge of the strategy of the game and complete control of the cue ball. The difference between the good and the top-class player is almost entirely a matter of playing for position. And for this a player needs mastery of any one of half a dozen different strokes - potting with follow-through, stun, all the variations of screw (from the full screw-back to the contact that will take the cue ball an inch to the right or left as desired) and potting with side to bring the cue ball off a cushion at an accurately judged pace. If snooker were a game of potting, pure and simple, I would give the palm to a young fellow I once met in a Birmingham club. No matter how the balls lay or how difficult the task he would bang them in with astonishing certainty. But he had no control of his game and so, against top-flight opposition, would never come through. Brilliant individual pots are admirable in their way and thrilling to watch, but control of the cue ball is the true hall-mark of the best players.
As to strategy, the game developed, especially in amateur circles, a certain degree of safety play which I always found disappointing. I am not making a plea for wild or reckless play but I do like to see a player with the ability to pot having sufficient confidence in himself to take a risk and go all out for a shot that is a reasonable proposition. I remember seeing one heat in an amateur championship in which a very good potter was opposed to a wily old bird to whom he could have given two blacks start without a qualm. But the veteran was allowed to dictate the lines on which the game was to be played. He opened with a safety move and his opponent, not to be outdone in caution, followed suit. After each man had made half a dozen strokes all the reds were clustered together on the left-side cushion, the black on the top cushion and the pink and blue equally out of action. It was now impossible for either player to make a break-which was just what the veteran intended. His opponent was capable of pulling out a break of 40 under the right conditions whereas he was not. So the reds were picked off one at a time and the older player was the winner. Had the younger man gone for his shots in the early stages he would have completely outplayed his opponent. Obviously, when two players are fairly equal in potting and positional play, a certain amount of safety play is only commonsense. But to play safety for the sake of keeping the other fellow out or refusing to go for a shot because, in missing it, you might leave your opponent on for a break is a weak-kneed policy that seldom wins games.
I myself was usually in the position of having to give my opponents a start. Yet in club play almost invariably my opponent would go for safety instead of trying to increase his lead. I, of course, had no option but to play an attacking game and if ever I was tempted to make a safety shot myself I always remembered my golden rule: that a safety shot means handing over the table to someone who, unless hopelessly snookered, might be clever enough to turn the tables.
All these innovations in stroke-playing and tactics we snooker pros were teaching ourselves as we went along. But as far as I was concerned it was all a matter of practice. In my experience spectators consider that the mere fact of being a professional implies that your cue has a magic tip enabling you to make a century break at will. Once, for instance, an enthusiastic fan followed me round a week of engagements in Sheffield. On the opening night I reached 97 but muffed the black and so failed to make my 100. Nevertheless, having made other good-sized breaks earlier, I was satisfied with my performance until the fan came up, very disappointed, to say: 'A pity you failed tonight'. I tried to persuade him that my form was really quite acceptable. 'Yes,' he said grudgingly, 'but you still failed to make the ton.' The next night, in a different club, I did make a 100 break but again missed the final black. Afterwards my faithful fan was again at my elbow.
'What a pity,' he said.
'But I made the century for you,' I protested.
'Yes,' he agreed, 'but missing that black prevented you from clearing the table.'
'It must be blood you want,' I replied.
As it happened, on the following evening I did manage to clear the table, and thinking that this ought to satisfy even my most critical supporter I approached the fellow, who had been watching attentively. But before I could speak he said: 'Wasn't it a shame there were no more balls on the table-then you could have broken your record.' It was ever thus.
But I could not complain too much, for this had been my own attitude to the game from the very beginning: never be self-satisfied, always spur yourself on, and keep practising.
Skill at a game is not a gift, though it is often characterised as such. Obviously a certain amount of natural aptitude is required, and in some sports this embraces physical makeup. But thousands of people with both the aptitude and the build for a sport - athletics, boxing, golf, swimming, etc. - never progress beyond the average. The secret ingredients that go to make a sporting champion are the burning desire to succeed, the will to persevere, the vigour and dedication to cast aside all potential distractions and a love of the game. Hard work it may be, but to the player it must simply be a labour of love. Which is why I place the emphasis so much on practice, constant practice - and by that I do not mean, as many amateurs believe, that playing several actual games each day is 'keeping in practice'. Before a big snooker match I used to spend a solid half hour doing nothing but cut the black off the spot into one of the corner pockets. And on the eve of my big Dorland Hall match against Willie Smith I practised for four hours. Practice also brings confidence, and confidence means winning half the battle between yourself and your nerves. A certain amount of nerves is not a bad thing, provided it is under control.
Naturally in some sports, and I include billiards and snooker, it is essential to start early in life. No champion of the green cloth has ever begun playing later than his early teens and this implies access to a table at a tender age. In this respect fate obviously plays a part, as it did in my case. But that, I think, is the last point at which Lady Luck takes a hand.
I am also a subscriber to the 'hungry fighter' school of thought - in other words that less than perfect financial circumstances are the keenest spur to further endeavour. A great many young professional sportsmen these days earn so much money through bonuses, guest appearances, television, advertising and the like that the temptation to slacken off must be enormous. Many sports today can produce examples of youngsters who fall for the star treatment, who cannot resist the parties and the business opportunities, and who thereby fall from the pinnacle of skill which alone was responsible for providing them with what they have. Perhaps, being philosophical, I was lucky not to have any such temptations. In my day you had to graft for every penny.
It was for this reason, on my return from Australia, that I wanted to organise some snooker matches. The style, popularity and attitude of young Horace Lindrum had only reinforced my conviction that this was the game we should be promoting, the game the crowds wanted to see. But I was short of opposition. Horace was not due to come over until later in the year, so meanwhile it was back to billiards.
At this point I had to bless the indefatigable Tom Webster. Big billiards and snooker had always received their life blood from the public and so good Press coverage, keeping the fans interested, meant a great deal to us. I used to be a trifle disappointed whenever I found that a rush of football or racing results had pushed our scores out of a paper, while recognising that a sports editor has not got limitless space or a limitless number of editions, and that, on occasion, something has to go. But Tom Webster and the Daily Mail, and the News of the World under Sir Emsley Carr (seldom missing from his seat at Thurston's) and later under Sir William were great benefactors of the game. And so it proved on this occasion. Tom had conceived the idea of a billiards tournament with a difference. It would be under a sealed handicap; in other words nobody would know until the end of the competition whether the lead they were conceding or receiving under the handicap had been sufficient to win or lose them the games they had played. The Daily Mail Gold Cup Tournament which was to prove a boon to us pros for the rest of the thirties was born. On December 31st, shortly after my return from Australia, Tom sealed up that year's handicaps and they were not opened till the end of the competition in March.
On January 14th I met Tom Newman in the second heat of the tournament. It was my first serious match since returning from Australia and it was a tough one. In the space of a day I scored 722, 587, 525 and 789, but then Tom countered with the first 1,000 of the tournament - 1,027. I fought back to lead at the start of the last day by 1,300 points but still Tom was not finished, compiling a magnificent 800-odd in the evening for a session aggregate of 1,367. At the close of the match he was just 94 points in arrears. It was quite like old times - except that on this occasion nobody knew who had won. Officially, that is; unofficially I had a good idea that Tom Webster must have given Tom some sort of start against me, and that meant I had lost.
I had to admit that, in the absence of the snooker matches I was wanting to play, the Gold Cup billiards tournament was highly successful. Of course it was well published in the Daily Mail and seemed to be a talking point wherever I was playing between my Gold Cup matches. Thurston's itself was always packed with enthusiasts who applauded with disconcerting fervour at every 100 points; Teddy Diggle would have approved.
I helped the publicity along in February when in my match with Tom Reece I scored a break of 2,002 in 112 minutes - a world record under the 200 baulk-line rule. When I potted the red to reach my second 1,000 the applause was so loud and long that I decided to nip out and wash my hands which had by then become pretty sticky. Perhaps it was this that spoiled my concentration. On my return I made a simple cannon none too well, to take the score to 2,002, but then failed at the next shot, a thin white loser. Later some people thought that in the heat of the moment Charlie Chambers had made a rare error and that my score was actually 1,999 before I pocketed the red; thus the red would have taken me to my 2,002 and the final cannon would have made the break 2,004. But Charlie was adamant and I for one was not inclined to argue, so 2,002 it was.
For the last night of the whole tournament, when the handicap was to be opened, all the seats were sold weeks in advance. There were so many famous names in the audience that it was like a Royal film premiere. I had seldom seen such enthusiasm for billiards. As I suspected, Tom Newman was declared the winner, with Willie Smith second, followed by me, Reece and lastly Inman. I was rather stunned when Tom Webster read out the handicaps; he had certainly been severe on me. I was conceding Tom Newman 1,000 points, Willie 1,500, Tom Reece 9,000 and Mel 8,000. With starts like that in matches of only a week I felt lucky to finish at all. To wrap up the proceedings Tom received his trophy from the hands of C. B. Cochran, the famous impresario, and Mel presented Tom Webster with a salver from the five players.
Exhibiting a totally alien, but nevertheless welcome, spirit of exhibitionism the BA&CC decided during the Gold Cup tournament to make the draw in public for the forthcoming UK Billiards Championship. I was drawn to play Willie Smith while Tom Newman received a bye to the final. I beat Willie and then, taking over where we left off before Walter Lindrum intervened in 1933, completed yet another victory over Tom Newman. It was a victory over Tom that I was to repeat every year until the war halted the championship.
But the battle for the title soon became the only facet of the billiards scene to command any attention. It was the World Snooker Championship that attracted both the spectators and the new faces among the professional ranks. And, sensing the drift of the tide, Tom Webster in 1936 converted the Daily Mail's Gold Cup into a snooker tournament instead. It was these two major snooker events which dominated the profession up till the war.
Horace Lindrum sailed to Britain as planned at the end of 1935 and I played him in February in what probably ranks, outside the championship, as the first major snooker match between two professionals in this country. We were matched by Bill Camkin, acting in association with the Birmingham Evening Des patch, in a week's match of sixty-one games at the Woodcock Street baths. Despite the fact that this was one of the city's biggest halls literally thousands of people were unable to gain admission during the week. It was a good omen for the extensive tour of England and Scotland on which we then embarked and which lasted for a couple of seasons, making us a great deal of money in the process. At last.
It was somewhat less than astonishing that in the final of the 1936 World Snooker Championship in May I should find myself playing Horace. In 1933 and 1935 I had beaten Willie Smith, with Tom Newman sandwiched in the middle, but Horace was unquestionably their superior and took no time at all after arriving in this country to assert that superiority. Happily, however, in the final I in turn was able to exert my superiority over him by 34 frames to 27 and so took the title for the tenth year in succession. Shortly after this, to show that I had not totally forsaken my first love, in holding the billiards title against Tom Newman I took ninety minutes to compile a break of 1,784 - so establishing a new world record under the existing rules.
As the 1936-7 season began I was particularly keen to try my hand in the opener of Tom Webster's snooker handicaps. It was, after all, what I had been awaiting for years. Tom had been rubbing his hands gleefully for some time before the conditions of the new competition were announced and in his drawings had been making heavy hints of surprising developments, successfully whetting the appetites of the readers and causing much speculation amongst the hapless pros. It turned out that Tom's novelty was to tell all the players what their handicap was - in my case I was on scratch - and so the result of each game would be known as soon as the last black went down. Instead, the sealed handicap was on the number of games Tom Webster considered a player ought to win and the trophy would go to the man getting nearest to that number. I took the event so seriously that I joined Chelsea Football Club at their training sessions to get into trim - thus causing much merriment. All that my hours at Stamford Bridge did was to make my legs feel wobbly but, all the same, I did win the tournament. On the final night Horace slashed down three winners to take the last game of our heat and Thurston's broke into thunderous applause. It was a fitting curtain for an event which broke all records for public interest and, I think, for the standard of snooker itself. But as Tom Webster stepped up with his sealed envelope he had one more trick up his sleeve. He announced that if he had made his open handicaps properly then all the heats should have ended in a tie - so a further handicap was pointless. The secret of his sealed envelope, therefore, was simply that where there was a tie between players in the number of heats won, the order of finishing should be decided by the aggregate number of games won during the whole tournament. Anyway, his ruse certainly had us all trying like blazes to win every game, and that is what the public wanted to see. I, having won all my heats and taken 204 games, was the winner while Horace and Tom Newman were level on three heats each. Here Tom Webster's system came in and Horace was placed second having won 184 games to Tom Newman's 183. That last game against me had been vital after all. Willie Smith was fourth, and fifth came his brilliant young Doncaster protégé Sidney Smith, an energetic fellow and quite a potter of the ball. It was on December 11th, during this competition, that Sidney, playing a heat in Bradford, set up a new world record of 133 - much to the chagrin of Horace Lindrum who, in London earlier on the self-same evening, had scored 131. It was probably the shortest-lived snooker record ever.
Both these breaks certainly put me on my toes. I had scored my unrecognised break of 132 but now I had to exceed that on a regulation table if I was going to snatch back the record. Not that records were ever things that one could seek out deliberately, the appreciation that the feat is within reach comes only as a break mounts up and the lie of the balls appears favourable. And even then you must take each ball on its merits, trying to shut your mind to the possibilities. But naturally, the keener one is to prove oneself in general the more likely becomes the specific feat of breaking a record.
Shortly after Sidney Smith's effort in January 1937, I made 124 against Tom Newman at Thurston's, having started 29-0 down on the last frame of an afternoon session, and this in turn I passed a month later, making 128 against Horace at Liverpool. But even with all these intimations it was still very satisfying when I finally topped Sidney's break to establish a new record of 135. This I achieved at Thurston's on March 6th, 1937 when playing an exhibition game against the Welshman W. A. Withers. After Withers broke the pyramid I cleared the board, potting after the reds, eight blacks, four pinks, two browns and a blue. So I was back on top as the 1937 championship season rolled round.
For this reason no bookmaker would take a bet on me that May when I contested the snooker championship for the second year in succession against Horace Lindrum. You could, of course, have any price you liked if you wanted to back Horace. And this is precisely what caused a certain gentleman to think. ...
For weeks before Horace and I were due to meet in the final I noticed that this fellow was present at practically every afternoon session, and many evening sessions, in which I was appearing. With the game being played in such an intimate set of surroundings it was not difficult to strike up an acquaintance - in fact everyone from the commissionaire to the players was happy to see regular customers and we encouraged them in every way we could. We players would chat with them before a session began, sometimes during a match and often afterwards. We all felt it was in our interests to do so.
This particular gentleman seemed very taken with our little chats and sometimes brought friends along with him. But it was all good for business and I became quite friendly with him. He was amusing, a great snooker enthusiast and, from his conversation, had been a great traveller. From having an occasional coffee together after the evening show our meetings blossomed into taking lunch together on several occasions. Our conversation wandered over various mutual interests - snooker, gambling, horse racing and the like, but the topic always seemed to meander back to my chances in the coming snooker championship.
Naturally I expressed a reasonable degree of confidence but I echoed the sentiments of Teddy Diggle who at an important function rose to his feet after dinner to say: 'I have been asked to make a speech about billiards. Billiards is a funny game' - and then sat down. Experience had taught me that snooker was similarly unpredictable and that in this instance, since Horace was always improving, I had to face the fact that I could be beaten. This statement seemed to offer my new friend the conversational opening he was looking for. 'How much do you actually make by winning the championship?' he asked.
'Oh, not very much,' I replied. 'As a matter of fact, very little. If it wasn't for the prestige value it would hardly be worth while.'
'Why?' he said. 'Don't you play for a side stake?'
'No we don't,' I answered. 'And even if we wanted to I wouldn't be able to find anyone to back Horace.
Looking back later I could see so clearly the build-up to the confidence trick being played on me, but it did not dawn on me as we spoke.
'I meet quite a lot of gambling types, chaps who are big betters on horses and play cards for high stakes,' said my friend. 'I'll see what I can do for you. One of them is an Australian. Perhaps he could be persuaded to back his own countryman.'
As the days shortened to the final I was in great form and feeling fit as a fiddle. I was hoping my friend would turn up saying that he had indeed managed to make a wager with his Australian friend. But although I had been playing at Thurston's for a week I had seen no sign of him and could not tell whether this was good news or bad. Then he telephoned to say he wanted to see me privately as soon as possible and I agreed that we should meet in the London flat which I then had in Linden Gardens, Notting Hill Gate.
He said he had been out of town because he had been busy racing and playing cards and during these sessions had discussed with his pals the question of a wager. Not one of them, he reported, would entertain the notion of betting with him against my winning but they were all keen to place big money with him against Horace's winning. In other words, if I lost he could win a fortune from his chums.
At this point he opened a small attaché-case which he had brought with him and produced from it bundles of bank notes. 'There's £1,000,' he said. 'And there's plenty more to follow if you agree to lose.'
This shattered me. It was some moments before I could recover from the shock to tell him what I thought of him.
'Don't be crazy,' he said. 'It's easier to lose than to win and I know you can do with the money. No one will ever know and you might easily net yourself another thousand or two.'
I could hardly deny the attractiveness of the money. But I said:
'Let me tell you that there isn't enough money in the world to make me do that. Now get out of here and don't ever speak to me again.' But he had the audacity to come to the opening session of the final sending a note to me beforehand to say that the offer still stood if I had changed my mind. I had not.
I subsequently made inquiries about my 'friend' and discovered that he was well known in the trade as one of the greatest confidence men in the country. And his travels abroad had been mainly as a card sharp, working the ships.
Little did Horace know the extra incentive I had for beating him that year.