Dudley Charles Carew (3 July 1903 – 22 March 1981) was an English journalist, writer, poet and film critic.

Life and career

Carew was educated at

Lancing College Lancing College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in southern England, UK. The school is located in West Sussex, east of Worthing near the village of Lancing, on the south coast of England. ...

, where he was the best friend of

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

. Later in life, Waugh spurned Carew, but in spite of this Carew continued to be Waugh's loyal supporter, including denying the allegations of youthful homosexuality that had been made against him. In 1928 he married Anthea Gamble. The marriage was not a success, and they divorced just five years later. He was a special correspondent of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' in the 1920s and 1930s, and reported on

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

matches for the paper. From 1945 until his retirement in 1963 he was the paper's film critic, and also wrote book reviews and amusing fourth leaders.''

The Cricketer ''The Cricketer'' is a monthly English cricket magazine providing writing and photography from international, county and club cricket. The magazine was founded in 1921 by Sir Pelham Warner, an ex-England captain turned cricket writer. Warner e ...

'', June 1981, p. 35. Almost all his articles for ''The Times'' were written anonymously, as was the paper's policy until

William Rees-Mogg William Rees-Mogg, Baron Rees-Mogg (14 July 192829 December 2012) was a British newspaper journalist who was Editor of ''The Times'' from 1967 to 1981. In the late 1970s, he served as High Sheriff of Somerset, and in the 1980s was Chairman of th ...

became its editor in 1967.

John Arlott Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE (25 February 1914 – 14 December 1991) was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's ''Test Match Special''. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he bec ...

wrote of him:

It was, perhaps, unfortunate for Dudley Carew that his entry into cricket writing should have coincided with the rise of
Neville Cardus Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus, CBE (2 April 188828 February 1975) was an English writer and critic. From an impoverished home background, and mainly self-educated, he became ''The Manchester Guardian''s cricket correspondent in 1919 and it ...
. If there had never been a Cardus, how highly should we have ranked one who wrote: "At the other end
Gunn Gunn may refer to: Places * Gunn City, Missouri, a village * Gunn, Northern Territory, outer suburb of Darwin * Gunn, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet * Gunn Valley, a mountain valley in British Columbia, Canada * Gun Lake (British Columbia), a Canad ...
batted much as a man potters about a garden, digging his fork into a bed with an abstracted and absent-minded air..."

Arlott also rated highly Carew's cricket novel, ''Son of Grief'', saying: "It has its darknesses, but it is convincing, and its characters are rounded and credible." The title, as with another of Carew's cricket books, was taken from the poetry of

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...

. Housman's ''A Shropshire Lad'' contains the lines:   Now in Maytime to the wicket
  Out I march with bat and pad:
  See the son of grief at cricket
  Trying to be glad. Some of Carew's own poetry appeared in ''Selections from Modern Poets'', two anthologies compiled by

J. C. Squire Sir John Collings Squire (2 April 1884 – 20 December 1958) was a British writer, most notable as editor of the ''London Mercury'', a major literary magazine in the interwar period. He antagonised several eminent authors, but attracted a coterie ...

and published in 1921 and 1924. Carew died in March 1981 at

Cuckfield Cuckfield ( ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Mid Sussex District, Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England, on the southern slopes of the Weald. It lies south of London, north of Brighton, and east northeas ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, aged 77.

Bibliography

*''The Next Corner'', John Lane, 1924. *''Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday'', Maurice Frank, 1926. *''England Over: A Cricket Book'', Martin Secker, 1927. *''The Courteous Revelation'', John Lane, 1927. *''Son of Grief'', Arthur Barker, 1936. *''To The Wicket'', Chapman & Hall Ltd, 1947. *''The Taken Town'', Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1947. *''The Puppet's Part'', Home & Van Thal, 1948. *''The House is Gone: A Personal Retrospect'', Robert Hale, 1949. *''A Fragment of Friendship: A Memory of Evelyn Waugh When Young'', Everest Books, 1974, .

Notes

References

Obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, 1982 edition.
*''Arlott on Cricket'', edited by

David Rayvern Allen David Leonard Rayvern Allen (5 February 1938 – 9 October 2014)Michael Dow"David Rayvern Allen obituary" ''The Guardian'', 26 October 2014 was a cricket writer and historian, as well as a radio producer and presenter, a speaker and a musician. Hi ...

, Fontana/Collins, 1985 edition, , pp186–188.

External links

Dustjacket blurb from ''To the Wicket''

''More Mighty than the Bat, the Pen: Culture, Hegemony and the Literaturisation of Cricket''Gideon Haigh on the cricket novels of Dudley Carew and Bruce Hamilton
at

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carew, Dudley 1903 births 1981 deaths Cricket historians and writers The Times people English male journalists English film critics People educated at Lancing College 20th-century English poets English male poets 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English male writers