Stephen Chalke has been writing about cricket history since 1996. He established Fairfield Books to publish books both by himself and by other authors, with eight of its titles winning national awards. In 2019 the Cricket Writers' Club presented him with the prestigious Peter Smith Award for Services to Cricket.

Stephen Chalke is probably the greatest oral historian of cricket ever. This memoir may be his best book. I urge you to buy it. It tells of Chalke’s 23 years at Fairfield Books, his homespun publishing house (literally a house in this case). There he was everything from MD to writer to delivery man until retirement this year. But that is only the framework, the trellis. Through it runs vivid social history, autobiography, and – in full vibrancy – the lives of county cricketers of the 1950s and 60s. That drabber, brighter, harsher, kinder, poorer, richer age. Paul Coupar-Hennessy, The Cricketer; Through the Remembered Gate is a candid and sympathetic memoir by Stephen Chalke, who since the late 1990s has through his research, writing and publishing transformed our understanding of the postwar game. David Kynaston, choosing it as his Book of the Year in The New Statesman

Stephen Chalke has been writing about cricket history since 1996. He established Fairfield Books to publish books both by himself and by other authors, with eight of its titles winning national awards. In 2019 the Cricket Writers' Club presented him with the prestigious Peter Smith Award for Services to Cricket.

Stephen Chalke is probably the greatest oral historian of cricket ever. This memoir may be his best book. I urge you to buy it. It tells of Chalke’s 23 years at Fairfield Books, his homespun publishing house (literally a house in this case). There he was everything from MD to writer to delivery man until retirement this year. But that is only the framework, the trellis. Through it runs vivid social history, autobiography, and – in full vibrancy – the lives of county cricketers of the 1950s and 60s. That drabber, brighter, harsher, kinder, poorer, richer age. Paul Coupar-Hennessy, The Cricketer; Through the Remembered Gate is a candid and sympathetic memoir by Stephen Chalke, who since the late 1990s has through his research, writing and publishing transformed our understanding of the postwar game. David Kynaston, choosing it as his Book of the Year in The New Statesman

Stephen Chalke has been writing about cricket history since 1996. He established Fairfield Books to publish books both by himself and by other authors, with eight of its titles winning national awards. In 2019 the Cricket Writers' Club presented him with the prestigious Peter Smith Award for Services to Cricket.

Stephen Chalke is probably the greatest oral historian of cricket ever. This memoir may be his best book. I urge you to buy it. It tells of Chalke’s 23 years at Fairfield Books, his homespun publishing house (literally a house in this case). There he was everything from MD to writer to delivery man until retirement this year. But that is only the framework, the trellis. Through it runs vivid social history, autobiography, and – in full vibrancy – the lives of county cricketers of the 1950s and 60s. That drabber, brighter, harsher, kinder, poorer, richer age. Paul Coupar-Hennessy, The Cricketer; Through the Remembered Gate is a candid and sympathetic memoir by Stephen Chalke, who since the late 1990s has through his research, writing and publishing transformed our understanding of the postwar game. David Kynaston, choosing it as his Book of the Year in The New Statesman