How an England cricket legend is helping Wolverhampton schoolchildren to read

The former England cricket captain is helping young pupils in Wolverhampton to improve their reading – and he admits: “It’s much harder than going into bat against the West Indies.”

The sporting giant, who famously faced up to the world’s most feared fast bowlers with a cavalier indifference, has become a mentor to youngsters at Graiseley Primary School after moving to the city a couple of years ago to be nearer his grandchildren.

At 83, he could be excused for cutting down on his interests and activities, not expanding them, but not him.

“I’d been thinking about it for a while,” he said. “I’d already seen children being read to in Codsall Library and said to my wife, ‘I think I could do that’. And of course I did nothing about it.

Ted captained Sussex and England in the early 1960s

“Then I saw an ad in a local magazine inviting people to go to an introductory meeting, and here I am.

“I was inspired to an extent by a great friend of mine who lives in Much Wenlock. He’s done some wonderful work with SSAFA [the Armed Forces charity], and is now a lay reader.

“I admire him so much for all that so I thought I’d better get off my backside and do something useful.”

Mentor

He attends the Pool Street school twice a week, sitting with another mentor in a room off the main reception, and listens to the children read, prompting them with questions now and again to improve their understanding.

He said: “Without books I don’t know how I’d exist. I’ve always read, particularly since I was a little boy.

“It was wartime and I was moved from one school to another, from Scotland to Ireland to Wales, and back to the home counties.

“That was a horrible school with an awful headmaster but there was a wonderful library.”

Ted and Navjot at Graiseley Primary School in Wolverhampton

He laughs: “I could tell you more about the Boxer Rebellions than most. Reading was a way to get away from all the tough stuff.”

The grandfather-of-two has spent the last 12 years living in France with his former model wife Susan but the couple returned every summer for babysitting duties at the Tettenhall home of their engineer son Tom and his wife.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of them having to go into a creche,” he says of his grandchildren, now 19 and 12.

“We’d got to know Wolverhampton quite well over the years and decided, ‘this is it – it’s out last port of call’.

“This will amuse you. To ensure this, the first thing I did was to buy two burial plots at Danescourt Cemetery. I’ve also bought our funeral from the local Co-op so we’re here, like it or not.”

Kerry Crook, deputy head teacher at Graiseley, talks of the huge impression the renowned cricketer has made in the two short weeks since he took on the role following a training course in Birmingham.

“Some of our year six boys never read but since Ted arrived, that’s all changed,” she said.

“They all want to read with him because they love cricket and want to captain India. They’re completely in awe of him, as are the staff. Ted is a natural.”