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Versatile English writer 1894–1968 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arthur Alexander Thomson, MBE (7 April 1894 at Harrogate, Yorkshire – 2 June 1968 near Lord's in London) was an English writer best known for his books on cricket, for which he used the byline A. A. Thomson. He wrote nearly 60 books in all, including plays, novels, verse, humour and travel books. Before turning his hand to cricket writing, he was a drama critic and a columnist for the Radio Times and for a Sunday newspaper, while working also as a civil servant.[1]
As a cricket writer, Thomson worked to bring out the character of the players that he was writing about and made liberal use of humour. In these and in possessing cricket memories back to the first decade of the 20th century, he may be compared with Neville Cardus, though Thomson wrote from a Yorkshire angle, not a Lancashire one. He once said cricket gave him more unalloyed pleasure over a longer period than anything else; that pleasure was clear in his writing. He saw cricket not only as the most pleasurable of pastimes but as a poet laureate might see it: an ever-vibrant display of colour, spirit, humour and conflict.
Tim Rice, introducing a 1991 reissue of Pavilioned in Splendour, quoted John Arlott: "Mr Thomson writes with a nostalgia, a wealth of anecdote, a warmth and heroic strain which, if we were not careful, would make Yorkshiremen of us all."
His autobiographical novel The Exquisite Burden (1935, reissued 1963) was described as brilliant by Wisden's anonymous obituarist. It was based on his childhood in Yorkshire.[2]
Thomson was awarded an MBE for services to sports writing in 1966.[3] He was President of The Cricket Society from 1963 till his death.[2]
Titles and dates confirmed with the British Library catalogue.
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