Sir Alec and Eric Bedser
Sir Alec and his brother Eric talk about playing cricket

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We had no playing fields - played on a bit of dirt. We had organised football, but there was no real organised cricket, except two matches a year for the school and no proper pitches to play on. We played on dirt.

How was it you both became so good at cricket?

That was our sole interest really, and from the age of six or seven, somehow we became mad on it and played. We played when we could amongst ourselves and also amongst the choir. We used to run a choir team, we were in the church just across from here. From the age of about seven or eight we used to all get together, get two sides and play. One bat between the team. You used to use a tree as a stump. You don't need a lot of equipment to learn to play cricket. All you need is a bat and a ball and if you're keen enough, you'll get out and find a way of doing it.

We only started to play for Woking when we were about 15 or 16, so we’d already started work then. So we didn’t play much cricket. Not in any real organised team - there was no youth cricket or anything like that, like there is today. All there was, was a local club side, which we joined when we were about 15 or 16 and played in their second XI. As we got a bit older we played in the first team until we were 19. You had to pay to play. The sub was a guinea a year to play for the club. It was more than a week’s wages.

We were so mad on playing and when we got to about age 18, we made up our minds virtually that we wanted to play cricket. By that time, we’d become good enough for the county to be interested. We were fortunate that an ex-salaried professional ran a little cricket school at Woking and he was then appointed coach at the Oval. He must have thought we had potential, so he recommended us for a trial at the Oval. It was just sheer luck really - haphazard - and we went and played in the trial and did all right, and so they offered us a contract.