The Ross Gregory Story
David Frith
When aged only twenty, Ross Gregory played cricket for his country alongside Don Bradman, averaging 51 in the 1936-37 Ashes series against England. He was considered to be one of the brightest prospects in Australian cricket. Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted in the RAAF and was engaged in Bomber Command operations over Europe. During those eventful months he kept a gripping account of events in his personal diary.
To preserve the diary and avoid the censors, he sent it home with a trusted friend. Shortly after, his plane and all its crew disappeared somewhere over the floodplains of Bangladesh. Veteran cricket author and historian David Frith first became aware of the Ross Gregory diary when he saw it advertised in a catalogue of Christies, the exclusive auction house in London. He made a postal bid for a collection of Gregory’s cricket memorabilia, of which the diary was a part. When he finally received the diary and read its contents, he knew that it was worth every penny he had paid for it.
Frith has delved deeply into Ross Gregory’s life and career, and traced many of the cricketer’s friends and relatives, as well as many rare illustrations. The outcome is an extraordinary two-part book which brings the charming, popular and sometimes rebellious Gregory to life and sheds much light on cricket and life in Australia and Britain during the late 1930s and early 1940s. (Copy has small inscription inside front cover, perfect otherwise)
An air of mystery has long surrounded Ross Gregory’s death since the crash of his Wellington bomber. ‘The Ross Gregory Story’ clarifies many of the facts, while also raising some urgent questions.
