Margaret Patricia Hughes (1 October 1919 – 30 January 2005) was an English sportswriter.

Life and career

Margaret Hughes was brought up in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, one of four children of Dorothy Maude and Arthur Hughes. She worked for the advertising department of ''

The Star ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', taking the job in order "to see the cricket scores before the general public". During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she served as a

Wren Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonly ...

. She then resumed her newspaper career and became a close friend of Neville Cardus. He bequeathed her his copyrights, and as his literary executor she edited several successful collections of his work."Obituaries", '' Wisden'' 2006, p. 1510. Her first book, ''All on a Summer's Day'' (1953), was described by Cardus in his foreword to the book as "the first book on first-class cricket not written by a man". John Arlott described it as "the book of an enthusiast who has watched and enjoyed cricket with an eye for detail and for character, for adventure and the human reflection behind the ropes". Following ''All on a Summer's Day'', Hughes covered the

Ashes Ashes may refer to: *Ash, the solid remnants of fires. Media and entertainment Art * ''Ashes'' (Munch), an 1894 painting by Edvard Munch Film * ''The Ashes'' (film), a 1965 Polish film by director Andrzej Wajda * ''Ashes'' (1922 film), a ...

series of 1954–55 for the '' Sydney Daily Telegraph'', the only woman to cover an Ashes series for a daily newspaper until Chloe Saltau did so in 2005 for ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

''. Her tour diary was published as ''The Long Hop'' (1955). Again Arlott praised her enthusiasm, and noted that "the Australia of her book is not merely a setting for cricket but a place of interest, of fun and of new impressions, all of which share place with the cricket".Arlott, "Cricket Books, 1955", ''Wisden'' 1956, p. 1025.

References

External links

Times obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Margaret Patricia English sportswriters 1919 births 2005 deaths Cricket historians and writers Women sportswriters