Just not cricket

Sad times for The Times, and for the game of cricket, with the passing within days of each other of William Rees-Mogg and Christopher Martin-Jenkins. Both men represented, besides the potency of the double-barrelled surname, a specific and wholly admirable strand of Englishness. They had unfailing good manners, and though very posh were never snobbish. They would talk to anyone and enjoy it (most of the time anyway). They never looked as if they were trying too hard, though of course both did work very hard throughout their lives.

And by golly they knew their stuff — whether it was Rees-Mogg and his antiquarian books (and Somerset cricket, of course) or CMJ and the finer points of Muralitharan’s bowling figures. They loved the English language and expressed themselves with Orwellian clarity, without any of the vanity that scars a lot of modern writing. Both men were blessed with an uncomplicated and loving family life.