Billiard-Cues Are peculiar things. And my old faithful is more peculiar than most. Yet it was the most important factor in my playing life.
Golfers, tennis players, cricketers and so forth often change their equipment - except in rare cases where they have some sentimental attachment to, say, an old putter. New equipment is frequently stronger, more supple or in some other way a technological advance and, in any case, equipment in most games has only a limited life. But billiards and snooker players stick to their chosen cue once they have found success with it; thereafter it becomes a lifelong companion to be treated with supreme care. I have known only one pro who changed his cue at the peak of his playing career. That was the New Zealand champion, Clark McConachy - and the change did him no good at all.
I first played him in the Open Billiards Championship for which I had unexpectedly qualified by winning the second division championship. At that time Mac was mainly a red ball player and used a 15-ounce cue. I was not afraid to take on the top men but, alas, Mac beat me out of sight, his cue working wonders. Some time later he changed over to an 18-ounce cue and again played the most fantastic billiards. But then came the fatal change.
He was staying at the Solent Cliffs Hotel in Bournemouth where Thelma Carpenter, at that time lady champion, lived with her parents, who were the owners. Naturally they had a handsome billiard-table where Mac practised. He had two 18-ounce cues with him and one day he gave his spare to Thelma, saying that he thought it might help her to play still better. After a time Thelma reported that she could not get on with it at any price and so handed it back to Mac - whereupon he immediately handed her the 18-ounce cue with which he had made so many 1,000 breaks. From that moment his play deteriorated and I do not recall his playing really well again.
However Mac was a very determined fellow and strong-willed to the point of pig-headedness. Once he had made up his mind on a subject nothing would move him. In desperation he finally changed over to a 21-ounce cue - which made no difference at all. But, extraordinary chap that he was, he never asked Thelma if she would let him have his winning cue back.
A few years later, in 1929, a similar experience befell Willie Smith during a series of games against the famous Walter Lindrum in Australia. He had been warned that betting interests might take a hand if he looked as if he were going to beat Walter and so, as a precaution, he took his cue with him to his hotel every night and locked it in the dressing-room between sessions. In the last match, in Sydney, Willie made a 2,030 break on the Saturday night and was in a promising position for the following Monday. But on that day, between sessions, the dressing-room was broken into and Willie had what he later described as the 'horrible experience' of finding his favourite cue broken in two. The cue, renowned in the profession as Willie's 'pit prop', had served him since the turn of the century. Without it he was soon overhauled by Walter Lindrum (though the match was never completed, Walter's wife having suddenly died) and to my mind never again achieved the same heights in the game.
Call it psychological if you like, but the fact of the matter is that I would have been prepared to give any professional player three blacks start in a game of snooker if he would take any cue - even a carefully selected one - rather than his regular one.
The crucial thing is to have the length and weight of the cue suited to the height and reach of the player - then it is up to him to make the most of it! I know from years of observation that many people are unhappily wedded to their cues. This is particularly true of amateur players who almost invariably favour longer cues than the professionals. Tom Newman, who had an exceptionally long reach, used a 4 feet 10 inch cue, but the rest of us used cues three or four inches shorter.
I feel quite hurt when I see a big hefty fellow using a light, whippy cue that looks, in his hands, like a garden cane. Likewise, I am unhappy when I see a smallish fellow toting a 20-ounce cue that resembles a barge pole.
Some people think that they can go into a billiard-room, pick a cue at random from the rack and get on with it. But to a billiards or snooker player a cue should be an immensely personal thing. While a star cricketer or tennis player can perform perfectly well with a strange bat or racket, a leading billiards player with a strange cue can do no more than get by.
There is something about the feel and grip of your own cue that is missing in any other. You know exactly what you can do with it and so handle it with total confidence. My advice to all young players is simply to choose a cue that feels good in their hands and then to regard it as something worth looking after. A good cue is a treasure.
My own cue I have treasured for over fifty years and hardly ever used anything else. I had dozens of cues made for me by various firms - and technically excellent most of them were - but once in my hands they were just another cue. Over the years it was a great source of worry to me to know that if anything ever happened to one piece of ash, 4 feet 7 inches long and weighing 16½ ounces, I would be sunk.
My first real cue was the one that my mother gave me when I won the Chesterfield and district championship as a boy. This I played with for about ten years and thought it was marvellous. But my old friend, adviser and opponent Willie Smith had doubts about it when I began playing among the pros. He considered it too whippy and once likened it to a fountain pen. Finally he said he would wash his hands of me if I did not find another 'stick'. But still I could not bring myself to leave my first favourite.
Then fate took a hand. In early 1923 I was due to play Willie in Leeds as part of the Yorkshire Evening News 'Boots for the Bairns' fund, the sort of effort that is fortunately not necessary these days. The week was memorable for three reasons.
Firstly, it was the time that I met George Nelson, who in his day had been Yorkshire Billiards Champion. Indeed, I remember watching him play George Gray when I was still in knickerbockers. However, George Nelson had eventually realised that there would be little financial security for him as a practitioner and so had started up in the trade end of the game. He and I rapidly formed a great friendship and he was a considerable influence, pumping into me all the do's and don'ts which he had amassed during his earlier career. I invariably stayed at his house when I was in the area and so spent many happy weeks with his family. And what a family - two boys and eight girls - all keen billiards players. His house was like a small hotel and, to swell the numbers even further, there always seemed to be other people (like me) staying there, friends either of George or of the children. Mrs Nelson coped magnificently, of course, in true Yorkshire style. Her Sunday dinners of lamb, chicken or beef were perfect and her Yorkshire puddings were out of this world. In his snatched moment of relaxation George played bridge and, in fact, had something of a local reputation at the game. But though I learned to hold my own at solo whist I reckon I was born too far away from the Portland Club to get the hang of the real thing.
The second point about that week concerned my health again. This time the trouble was with my appendix. I had been told several times by my local doctor that it would have to come out, but I always seemed to be far too busy playing to afford time off in hospital having the necessary operation. Since my match with McConachy, though, I had been troubled a good deal and while I was in Leeds my appendix was grumbling away twenty to the dozen - though Willie never knew about it. When I was there I went to see a doctor for a medical in connection with an endowment insurance. I felt I ought to explain about the appendix - whereupon the doctor looked doubtful and said it would be best if I postponed the insurance for a year to see how I got on. I should have taken the hint and had the appendix removed but, short-sightedly, I just carried on. I was later to think back ruefully to that doctor's surgery.
But it was in the matter of my cue that the week in Leeds was to prove such an influence on my career. I always used to carry around with me a damp cloth to counteract the effects of my perspiring hands. During a game I would frequently wipe the cue to keep it smooth and free of stickiness, and wipe my hands at the same time. One morning I was on the last minute leaving home for Leeds and had packed everything in such a rush that I had forgotten to include a cloth. I remembered it just as I was opening the door and, to save unpacking, hastily pushed a cloth into my cue case.
When I reached the billiard-hall in Leeds and opened my case I was horrified to find that the cue was as bent as an archer's bow - thanks to the dampness of the cloth. I managed to straighten the cue out reasonably well but it had lost that magic 'feel'. There was nothing for it but to look for a replacement.
As it was towards the end of the season I consoled myself with the thought that when I found a new cue I would have the summer months in which to practise, practise, practise and dispel from my mind any psychological fears. But first, as Mrs Beeton might have said, catch your cue.
When I got my first cue as a boy, I was hardly discriminating; anything new and sparkling looked superb to me. Now, at least, I knew just what I was looking for, though this, of course, only made the task more difficult. Every billiard-room I entered that summer I scoured the rack in my search for the Holy Grail. I felt in my bones that it would probably turn out to be an old cue with just the right grain to make it straight and true.
I hunted resolutely, no place being too humble or too unlikely. And so, one day, I came to be in the Parish Church Institute right in the middle of Chesterfield - where I found what I was looking for. There was just one snag: it was not among the cluster of cues on the wall but in the hands of one of the members, Fred Frazer, as he played a game of billiards. And it was his own property.
'May I have a closer look at your cue?' I asked him. 'It looks a good one.'
And Fred replied, almost apologetically, with the magic words:
'I'm afraid it's only an old one. I've had it for years.'
I was too excited to indulge in any poker-faced bargaining.
'It may be old, but it's a beauty,' I said, and explained what had happened to mine and what a pickle I was in.
I knew that Fred was quite a useful amateur and that it was expecting rather a lot to ask him to give up his cue. Yet perhaps it was an advantage to me that he did in fact know a bit about the game for it meant that he understood my predicament. Quite what Fred's motives were I will never know. He may simply have been hard up or, as I prefer to think, may genuinely have wanted to help. But the fact remains that he agreed on the spot to let me buy the cue off him.
The price was 7S 6d. And I have been grateful for a lifetime.