Review by Mark Pirie of Every Picture Tells a Story: New Zealand Cricketers in the United Kingdom 1931 by Rob Franks and Ronald Cardwell (The Cricket Press Pty Limited, Cherrybrook, Australia, 2025).
Rob Franks is the official Kiwi Cricket Pages bibliographer, so his work is invaluable for checking his lists of New Zealand cricket poetry and cricket fiction. He keeps track of new books published and updates his bibliography.
Franks is also a researcher and writer and included one of my poems on Martin Donnelly and Keith Miller in a book of his. This year he sent me a beautifully produced book. It is published by Ronald Cardwell’s The Cricket Press Pty Limited, Australia, who know how to design and print cricket books like no other. He has been doing it for 50 years. This latest book Franks is co-author of with Cardwell is on the 1931 New Zealand team that toured England about a year after New Zealand received official Test status. It’s like an art catalogue of photos on the men who toured and has critical insights into a number of the key players, and what they got up to on the tour back then.
What got my attention is that Cardwell has used Rod Stewart’s album title Every Picture Tells a Story for the concept of the book. Stewart is best known as a footy man with his own football pitch at his house. Cardwell says he is also a cricket observer.
The players I most recall are Milford Page the vice-captain, Stewie Dempster and Roger Blunt the batsmen, and Tom Lowry the captain. The photos offer a rare glimpse into the team at the time, besides stills of actual play against the English. My favourite photo is “Links golf” where skipper Lowry is seen ‘smoking’ the ball with a wooden driver. Nowadays plenty of New Zealand cricketers play golf too.
The image of “Play on day one of the First Test at Lord’s on 27 June 1931” is dramatic. The batsman has just played a shot. Stewie Dempster is the man hitting down the leg side. The photo “Gunn & Moore – bat inspection” has all the men in suits, stylishly attired and dapper. Roger Blunt examines a Gunn & Moore bat. My own bat in club cricket in Wellington was a GM Canon, liking the tradition of GM bats.
The series of photos is preceded by detailed biographies of the players. Jack Mills is interesting as he scored the first Test century in Wellington 1929-30. His career fell away. A batsman with talent unfulfilled. Stewie Dempster was the 'star quality' averaging 59.26 on the tour. He scored seven centuries on tour and was impressive.
The authors state at the beginning: “Each era reveals its own distinctive characteristics. It is insightful to spend time exploring the past, as it helps to contemplate the future. Look through the camera lens with us and learn about the players, their personalities and happenings that took place on a long-forgotten tour.” It’s a great piece of memorabilia, thanks to Rob for sending it my way.
Review © Mark Pirie 2026
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| Every Picture Tells a Story by Rob Franks and Ronald Cardwell (The Cricket Press, 2025) |
As an addendum to this review, I offer my own poem I wrote for rockin’ Rod. Stewart was influenced by hard rock and blues with his good friend Ronnie Wood a guitarist and collaborator. I collected Stewart’s Gasoline Alley along with his Faces work and have a few double CD collections of his full career, as well as his recent albums.
MARK PIRIE
Rod Stewart
women go crazy
for that hair
tousled and blond.
I like his voice
an injection of British soul
that maybe Sammy Hagar
gets close to in American rock
imagine if he had
taken up the apprenticeship
at Brentford Football Club
music wouldn’t be the same
without that Face
or ‘Maggie May’…
*
some nights
I’m on a downtown train
there’s hot legs
and a mandolin wind
some guys have all the luck.
(From Valley Micropress, August 2016)
Poem © Mark Pirie
