Anthony Gibson – författare

The story of Ernie Foord, the local Somerset lad who in 1897, at the age of 16, was appointed club professional at the fast-developing and prestigious Burnham & Berrow Golf Club. In June 1912, on its 18-hole championship links, he played arguably the most remarkable round in the history of golf, completing the course in 73 strokes, using only a single club, a putter. In the words of Bernard Darwin, golf correspondent of The Times, it was 'a truly astonishing score because Burnham is neither a particularly short nor a particularly easy course'. The following year, over 36 holes, Foord defeated the five-time Open champion JH Taylor. Then in 1916 he emigrated to the United States where he landed the plum job of professional at Oakland Hills. This is an account - factual in some parts, imagined in others - not just of Ernie Foord's career and achievements but of the golfing world as it was in the early years of the 20th century, with its snobbery as well as its opportunities.

Early Anglo-Saxon Christian Reliquaries presents a corpus and discussion of a group of Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy containers dating to the seventh and possibly eighth centuries, and variously described as work boxes, needle cases, amulet containers or Christian reliquaries. Seventy-one boxes, some incomplete or fragmentary, have been recorded from forty-nine sites across Anglo-Saxon England. A typology, material specification, drawings, design and construction principles are provided, and a nomenclature applicable to these containers is outlined. Catalogue entries give details of site location, description, decorative features and references. Three box types are identified, and a concluding discussion suggests that boxes of Types I and II had a Christian function and should be considered as reliquaries. Type III boxes had a secular function, and their purpose remains enigmatic.

He begins this volume by reflecting on the idiosyncratic genius of Alan Gibson, whom he befriended in the writer’s later years. With a foreword by Gibson’s son Anthony, the join between the two books is perfect.From Brearley to Stokes, there is almost more change in cricket and society in the 46 years covered here than in the 102 years spanned by the previous volume – and there are just as many characters and incidents. How could it be otherwise with a cast list that includes Ian Botham, David Gower, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen? In his own gentle and ever perceptive way Vic Marks tells the story and reflects on the successes and failures, providing a quiet treatise on captaincy.Where Gibson ended by questioning whether Test cricket would survive a further 100 years, Marks strikes a more upbeat note, suggesting that no-one in recent decades has done more than Ben Stokes ‘to keep a format, still beloved by so many, alive.’Published as a matching pair with Gibson’s original volume, it contains 16 pages of photographs and an11-page appendix of biographical notes.