It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1924, and there I was, out on the Walton Golf Club course in Chesterfield, when I was suddenly struck by a terrific stomach pain. The old appendix yet again.
I had been having innumerable attacks, with an ever-shortening breathing space between, since seeing the doctor in Leeds. But I still, stupidly, kept putting off the inevitable. Each time the pains stopped I would breathe a sigh of relief and try to forget about the trouble. But this time the pain did not wear off.
Somehow or other I struggled back to the club-house and slumped into a chair. There I watched in pain until a doctor friend saw me and insisted on examining me on the spot. But it was too late. The appendix had already burst and developed into peritonitis. The doctor immediately called an ambulance, then informed my own doctor, my wife and the family, while I was whisked off to a nursing home for an emergency operation.
If one thinks at all of the major developments of the twentieth century one thinks of things such as aeroplanes, cars, television and so on. But in medicine, too, the advances have been quite enormous and much more beneficial. It is now hard to remember that in 1924 peritonitis was a deeply worrying condition (it is not very jolly even today) and the treatment dangerously unsure. There was no M & B and no penicillin, in fact no chemical therapy at all. You were drained and then left to lie there for weeks on end hoping that Mother Nature would do her healing stuff.
Luckily I pulled through, though I hardly deserved to since I had brought the whole thing on myself, and was in the nursing home for just over a month. Thereafter I spent some time convalescing in the bracing air of the Isle of Man. I was fortunate, in a way, in that I had the op in summer - that is to say, the off-season for billiards. I could not have afforded to lose engagements during a winter hospitalisation. All the same, I would have spent a much shorter period out of commission if only I had had the appendix out a year earlier.
My medical treatment and rest-cure had set me back a pretty penny. It was therefore more than ever vital for me to put up a good performance in the coming season.
Although I was undeniably rusty I had high hopes, since earlier in the year, in between grumbling appendixes, I was showing good form. My outstanding performance, and again Tom Carpenter was the victim, was in the semi-final of the second division championship which we were playing in the Western Hotel, Cardiff. At four o'clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 27th, I went to the table trailing by 2,599 points to 2,834 and by the end of the afternoon session had scored 313 unfinished. I played right through the evening to end the day with a break standing at 884, still unfinished. The next afternoon, with Tom still shining the seat of his trousers, I took the break to 957 before leaving the white trembling in the jaws of a pocket. This meant that I had to pocket it and continue as best I might off the red - an attempt which broke down at 980 at a tricky loser into a bottom pocket.
Although I was naturally disappointed not to make the four figures, I was delighted at shattering my own previous record. This was 599 - my first score of over 500 - which I notched up a few months earlier at the Burroughes Hall against Fred Lawrence. This game was remarkable for the fact that, shortly afterwards, Fred himself scored a break of 662, thus snatching back from me in the space of one match the distinction of having compiled the highest break by a second division player.
My 980 was the highest break ever made in a championship event and 'Hazard' of the Sporting Life, reviewing the season later, gave it 'pride of place among the whole of the remarkable performances of the season'. It was not, however, the highest break ever under the rules then existing. Tom Newman had three times topped 1,000 points: in 1924 he scored 1,024 against Fred Lawrence, in 1922 he scored 1,274 against Claude Falkiner and a couple of days before my Cardiff match he had scored 1,208 against Willie Smith in a memorable match in Newcastle in which Willie himself set up a personal best of 974. The world record under existing rules was held by the great Australian master, Walter Lindrum, who scored 1,879 in Australia in 1925 - but 1,413 of these were off the red and composition balls were being used.
It was with the confidence born of breaks such as the one at Cardiff that I began the 1924 season with a match at Thurston's against Tom Newman. The confidence was clearly well-founded because I beat Tom by just under I,000 points. Of course, there was no question of sailing through matches against Tom with any confidence - nor against Willie Smith. Willie had beaten Tom by 16,000 to 15,180 to take the 1923 championship - only the second time he ever entered the competition - and in the 1924 season he was always a stumbling block to me. He put me firmly in my place on several occasions. In any case, Tom and Willie were giving me fairly liberal starts, varying between 1,500 and 2,000 in 18,000 up, so even when I won I was not so foolish as to imagine that I was ready to take the championship.
Nevertheless I was doing enough to bring home the bacon and my diaries show that I was able to ask between five and seven guineas for an evening exhibition, depending on how far I had to travel. Life at home for Queenie and baby Derrick was becoming fairly comfortable if not exactly luxurious (though I did save enough to buy a piano for Queenie).
I still could not afford to back myself heavily in matches so could not make a killing in that way. Nor was I ever a hustler, though I know that tidy sums could be made; as in the bad old Victorian days, there seemed to be a bottomless ocean of untalented amateurs with more money than sense waiting to be fleeced in clubs up and down the country.
There was one incident in Glasgow back in 1923 which illustrates how easy it could be. I had been playing at the West Nile Street Hall, belonging to a fellow called Jimmy Williamson, and was invited to stay the weekend with a big local bookmaker and racehorse owner, George Dingley. As I suspected, George had a billiard-table at his house and after Sunday lunch several pals of his 'just by chance' arrived. George introduced me to them as Joe Thompson - though the camouflage was rather laying it on with a trowel. I did not flatter myself that my name was a household word north of the border. It appeared that among these fellows was one Ian McLean who fancied himself strongly at snooker and George, without any malice, had conceived the idea of taking him down a peg or two. After a good deal of subtle prodding by George including assertions of my prowess and doubts about that of McLean, a money match was struck. By arrangement with George I lost the opening game and so the hapless McLean was induced to continue in order to make, as he thought, a killing off his old friend. At this point I began to play rather better 'suddenly getting the feel of the table'. After one defeat, of course, McLean still had the memory of his earlier victory to keep him going. So we played again, and again - until, finally, George called a halt and said, 'Right Ian, I make it that you owe me £25.' After a short pause, however, he added, 'I'll tell you what, we'll call it all square since you have just been playing the coming snooker champion of the world.'
We had a lot of laughs. No one was hurt and I was no less honest. And no better off either!
Later, as I was getting ready to go, George took me by the arm and told me that he had a horse called White Bud running in the Lincolnshire Handicap. He thought it would romp home as an outsider and advised me to back it. When the betting came out I had £10 each way on it and it won at 66-1. (Later George was 'warned off' because of some discrepancy in the running of White Bud at another meeting.) So perhaps I did make something out of my weekend after all.
However, I was boosting my income in other ways, for in 1924 I went into business with my father. We had leased premises at Staveley, the big industrial area near Chesterfield, which we opened as a billiard-hall accommodating eight full-size tables. This, added to the hail which father built behind the Lyceum Cinema in Whittington Moor and which had ten tables, was pretty big business - or so I thought in those days. The tables, bought from Burroughes and Watts, cost us in the region of £100 each, a sum which included lighting and all the fittings for billiards and snooker.
We charged 1s per table when two men were playing and 1s 4d if four people were playing. Money did not grow on pit shafts, though, so we were really busy only at the weekends when the lads received their pay packets. Consequently we never made a fortune out of the halls, but we contrived to stay in pocket, which was the main thing. Eventually we sold the Staveley hall to a brother pro, Walter Donaldson, but the one behind the Lyceum we kept on for many years more.
It was in 1926 that I first plunged into the big pool. I decided to enter for the Open Billiards Championship. (My previous effort, against McConachy, I do not count since my participation was virtually obligatory, having won the second division championship.) By 1926, however, the Billiards Association and Control Council - the BA&CC - had decided both to maintain the standards of the competition and to deter no-hope entries by levying an entrance fee of £100, a very stiff sum indeed in those days.
I could ill-afford that sort of money, but thinking that I had some chance I risked it.
In the semi-final I had to play Mel Inman, one of the great characters of the game and a great fighter. He had been champion from 1912 to 1919. In fact Mel started in 1892, rather like myself, by knocking the balls about on a table at the Gentleman's Club run by his father in Twickenham and by the turn of the century he was playing against the great John Roberts. It could be said therefore that by the time of our semi-final meeting in 1926 Inman had already been in the game for thirty years. And he knew all the tricks of the trade both on and off the table.
At about the time of our meeting we were having an argument, conducted through the Press, about our relative merits. Inman was reluctant to concede that in the twenties he was not quite the force he had been and still insisted that, as an ex-champion, he had the right to give up-and-comers such as me massive starts in any game. This, in my view, was merely window dressing on his part, done for prestige reasons - a type of gamesmanship which was, I suppose, quite common. Professionals were always more eager to give than receive - except when it came to gate receipts!
Willie Smith was on my side in the argument, and said so publicly in his usual outspoken way: 'It's absurd,' he said. 'Davis ought to be giving Inman 3,000 start.'
Later Mel was busy denigrating my play by implication, saying that Tom Newman and Willie Smith were of such a calibre that they could give any other player a start of 4,000. This stung me to make a reply in a letter to the Press pointing out that I had recently beaten Tom Newman three times when receiving only 2,000 points and suggesting therefore that the records surely showed that talk of 4,000 points was nonsense. I also revealed that I had twice offered Inman games for £100 and £250 a side, giving 2,000 points.
'It would be better for Inman,' I concluded, 'if he gave a reply to this straightforward challenge instead of making ridiculous statements affecting other players' calibre.'
I then wrote another letter to the Press to make a public challenge to play anyone except Willie Smith or Tom Newman at £100 a side. When Inman finally did agree to play me, we reached a compromise; I agreed to accept a 1,000 start provided that, if I won, we would then play a level match. I think I can say that I proved my point at our first encounter. I won by 6,000 points in 16,000.
Owing to my view of Inman's current form I was far from overawed by our semi-final clash in 1926. But counting chickens is always dangerous. There was still a lot of fight in the 'Twickenham Terrier' as Mel liked to be known. He was a forceful, aggressive player and sometimes almost crude. But he was also a remarkable safety player, with the ability to tie up and frustrate his opponents, never letting them get into their stride.
He could bring players down to his own level and had won many matches with this technique. He began to weave such a spell over me in that semi-final that after a couple of days I found myself i,000 points down without being able to fathom out quite how, why or when I had gone wrong. It was a potentially demoralising experience. Fortunately for me, on the third day Jack Mannock, JP came to watch the match and saw how Inman was thwarting me. In an interval he had a few words with me.
'Go out for everything,' he said. 'Don't bother about playing for safety yourself. Once you get going your confidence will come back and Inman's will diminish.'
Immediately I went furiously on to the offensive and made a large break. In those moments the match was won and lost. Inman was hammered into the table and I romped home the winner by 1,100 points. He realised, of course, what had happened and that someone had coached me in the interval. Furthermore he would very much like to have known who it was - in fact he said so and asked me point blank for a name. But I valued Jack Mannock's confidence and kept my mouth shut.
In the final I was to meet the reigning champion, Tom Newman, in the Holborn Town Hall, London. Before his previous year's victory Tom had been champion in 1921, 1922 and 1924 but as I had beaten him in the past I felt I had a chance. In fact, not long before, I had beaten Tom by over 3,000 in a game of 18,000 in which I received 4,000. It was true that I was on particularly good form that day while Tom seemed ill-at-ease and lacking his usual confidence. Still, it was a heartening omen for our two-week long championship final.
How wrong can you be?
I was beaten out of sight.
Tom was in dazzling form this time and streaked ahead. I summoned up my reserves to make a fighting rally on the final Tuesday afternoon, scoring breaks of 414, 363, 226 and 213, and altogether making 1,481 in a couple of hours. But by that time the exercise was a purely academic one. Even after this spurt Tom was in the lead by 3,665, and this was the closest I got to him thereafter. It was, in a way, a relief when referee Arthur Goundrill finally called 'game'. Afterwards Tom said that I had done 'perhaps a finer thing than winning the championship', I had 'lost it like a gentleman'. Frankly, if anyone was going to lose it like a gentleman I would have preferred it to be Tom.
There was one further factor which rubbed salt into my wounds. Because the match had been a runaway victory for Tom our following had dropped off drastically after the opening few days - so much so that when the organisers had done their sums, totting up the receipts and deducting the expenses, a loss of some £35 was calculated. Tom and I had to dip into our pockets to make up the difference. At least Tom had my £100 to console him. Not only had I lost that £100 entrance fee I had now forked out a further £17 odd for the pleasure of losing. And to cap it all there was my fortnight's accommodation and other expenses to pay for.
The final was always right at the end of the season, a fact which was frequently protested about by players and aficionados alike, so this left me with a gaping hole in my bank balance - or, to be exact, no balance at all - and only another one-week match before the summer lay-off.
This was against Willie Smith in the Northampton Town Hall and was sponsored by a mutual friend, Fred Liquorish, a billiards enthusiast who owned a motor car company. And a traumatic week it was, for at midnight on Monday, May 3rd the General Strike began. Coming from a mining area I was, of course, in sympathy with the miners, who triggered off the emergency by refusing to accept so-called 'economy' plans for longer hours and reduced wages: 'Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day' in the celebrated words of the miner's secretary, A. J. Cook. But it did make life difficult for me. For among the first men called out - before, in fact the strike became truly 'general' - were the transport and railway workers. So how was I going to get home?
Willie was all right; he owned his own car (and used to send billiards correspondents postcards describing his journeys). I, naturally enough, was not a car owner. But here Fred Liquorish came to my rescue. His solution was a simple one, if extravagant, he would sell me a car. We circumvented the tricky little problem of my shortage of cash by agreeing that he would let me have a £100 Morris Cowley there and then, whereas I need only pay him for it when I was in funds - and without any interest. He gave me a few rudimentary driving lessons, there being no formal test to worry about in those days, and at the end of the week I rumbled impressively through the streets of Brampton and parked outside the front door.
But this (subsidised) flamboyance was the last gesture of defiance, like a French aristocrat going to the guillotine wearing his finest clothes. The harsh fact remained. The season was now over. Financially I was back to square one. And again it was time for all good mothers to come to the aid of the larder.
Looking back, it is incredible how small, even in the top echelons of the game, was the margin between success and failure. For me at that moment, this truth was never more apparent. All the plusses of the early season - wins over Smith, Newman, Inman and so on - had been wiped out by the one colossal minus of my defeat in the Holborn Town Hall.
It was back to the drawing board.