The recent decision of Fred Davis O.B.E. to retire from competitive snooker reminds me of the first time I saw him play. The owner of a well-known local Billiards firm, one Howarth Nuthall, had organised a series of exhibitions in aid of the Notts County Cricket Club which, in the period immediately after the war, was pretty broke These exhibitions were given by Fred Davis and Horace Lindrum and one of them was at the Bulwell Church Institute, Nottingham where I had been a member for some six months and was already totally hooked on Billiards to the exclusion of virtually everything else including eating. (I've made up for that since.) I can still recall the feeling of excitement waiting with a group of boys at the Billiards room door about an hour early to make sure of a good 'non-reserved' place for which we had to pay, I think, one shilling. The place was packed. Davis and Lindrum were eventually introduced. Fred, I remember as round-faced, wearing glasses, and he seemed to me rather portly but not looking that much different from how he looks today. Lindrum had dark wavy hair, he also wore glasses and was a short, stockily built man, he had a rather boyish face and a permanent smile. Both were immaculately dressed, they were professionals from head to foot. The exhibition began with Billiards - they were different days. Davis broke and attempted to screw in-off the red, he failed and left the balls one over each top pocket. Here I must digress. I had played billiards for about six months and thought I knew something about it, indeed, as I slept with Levi's, "Strokes of the Game, Vol.1," under my pillow, I thought I was an expert. When not playing the game, I watched others playing, or read about it, or talked about it, or thought about it during lessons at school, or dreamed about it at night. At that time the Club had two very good local players, both had made 300 breaks in their time and were still regular 100 break men, both were also red ball players of the deepest dye. They played each other three or four nights a week and flogged the red ball to death. I wonder now how they could do it without getting bored but at the time I was fascinated. To return to the exhibition, Lindrum played in-off the white to bring it to the middle pocket and then did the- same with the red. I purred, both balls over the middle bags straightaway, now we should see something. Lindrum then went in-off the white pushing it behind the spot. I can remember to this very moment the feeling I had that this was a bad shot. He then potted the red; I was puzzled. Horace Lindrum was a very quick player, he had a habit of putting one hand on the cushion rail and giving a little skip round the corner as he hurried from one side of the table to the other at the spot-end. About a quarter of an hour later I felt 'sandbagged' as he broke down at a masse having made something over three hundred by 'Postman's Knock.' Fred went to the table and, by the same method, also made a break of around the 300 mark. I was in a state of shock, what was this losing-hazard game that I had read about and tried to play? It was the first time I had seen any high-class billiards and I like to think that it was a glimpse of the golden age of the game as it was played before the nursery cannon dulled the interest, and before this quality of play was revived in England by Norman Dagley. The two played some snooker, no big breaks, and then rounded of the evening with an exhibition of Trick and Fancy shots the like of which I have never seen since. Horace Lindrum could do quite fantastic things with a billiard ball spinning it with a snap of his double-jointed fingers. He could throw a ball up the table and, after one bounce, make it stop dead somewhere near the pink spot exactly like a golfer might play a little wedge shot. He could make them go round in circles, and spin them the length of the table in a great curve to vanish into a corner pocket. Both men played strokes demanding of great skill and not the kind of trick shot that is simply dependent on the set up of the balls, Fred finished off the evening with 9 or 10 balls in the machine gun shot.
It was a fantastical, magical evening and I shall never forget it. The proceeds realised £53. 10. 00 and I have in my possession a letter from the then secretary of the Notts C.C.C. thanking the Institute for its efforts. Some of this money was raised from a Dutch Auction of a Lindrum cue; this cue is now used regularly by Mini-Prix regular Malcolm Pilkington though how it came into his possession is another story. Howarth Nuthall died some years ago and it is interesting to recall that both Melbourne Inman and Tom Newman played their last exhibition games under his auspices.