James Grahan-Brown

Chesterfield Cricket Lovers’ Society members were pleased to welcome James Graham-Brown, especially as his last planned visit to the Society had to be postponed through family illness. James was a right-handed bat and a right-arm medium-pace bowler who represented England teams at Under 19 level in 1969 and 1970 before joining Kent in 1971. He was part of Kent’s winning Gillette Cup side in 1974 taking 2-15 off 12 overs in the final against Lancashire. He spent 6 years at Kent before moving to Derbyshire in 1977 where he stayed for 2 seasons. He then retired from professional cricket but continued to play Minor Counties for Cornwall and Dorset until 1991.

He played on occasion for Chesterfield CC, including with such notables as Geoff Miller, Edwin Smith and Jim Brailsford.

His great uncle, Lionel Blaxland, also played for Derbyshire throughout the 1930s.

After his career in cricket, James went into education, was Head Teacher of Truro School for 8 years, eventually becoming Headmaster of the Royal High School, Bath, until his retirement in 2020. He is also a successful playwright. having written over 30 plays under the nom de plume of Dougie Blaxland. His one-man play “When the Eye Has Gone” about the life and death of the Test cricketer Colin Milburn, was prompted by his own loss of the sight in one eye and was performed around England in late 2016, including performances at all 18 County Championship cricket grounds. He followed this in 2019 with “The Long Walk Back”, a play about the former Test cricketer Chris Lewis. He has also written “Getting the Third Degree” about Laurie Cunningham and racism in football.

James was an articulate, witty and highly entertaining speaker with many anecdotes about the players he played with and against at Kent and Derbyshire, including M C Cowdrey, his close friend and house-mate John Wright and the inspiring leadership of Eddie Barlow.

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