Last week in the CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket, Stephen Hedges - the son of the former Glamorgan batting legend - spoke eloquently about his late father\'s playing career with the Welsh county. Alun Rhys Chivers writes below about the well-attended evening and the evocative memories which the talk created.
"The Player from Ponty" will be published shortly by St.David's Press and will be a tribute to Glamorgan Cricket’s “unsung hero”, Bernard Hedges, according to his son and the author, Stephen Hedges, who was this month’s guest speaker at the CC4 Cricket Museum talk. Hedges spoke to Andrew Hignell about his father’s career between 1950 and 1967 and his decision in 2014, following his father’s passing, to undertake the Boundary of Wales walk in his memory.
“It was on the back of that walk that I’d got to know Andrew well at Glamorgan,” said Stephen. “I’d always liked the idea of recording of Dad’s playing years and so it was a natural extension of that to want to write his biography.
“Andrew was incredibly enthusiastic and encouraging about it which took me a bit by surprise because I thought I would have to work much harder to convince him. That’s when the shape or the idea for the book came. I think it was that first Christmas, December 2014 I met with Andrew in a pub in central Cardiff.”
Bernard Hedges was born in Pontypridd and was one of eight children who had what Stephen describes as a difficult life. “
“Through that adversity, to come out the other side with what many of his friends at school described as a gift, his ability to play sport, that most definitely shaped his outlook, which was always one of loving the opportunity to play, that was really important to him, but he never saw that as being more important than anything else. That never made him more important. He was a very grounded man, very kind, very generous, very giving of his time.”
Nowadays, Stephen Hedges lives and works in the Midlands, but he was keen to discover more about his father’s roots in the south Wales valleys.
“We knew very little about Pontypridd growing up, we rarely went there, occasionally to see my Nan. I know that I’d only gone as far as Rhydfelen, I’d never ventured as far as the town centre so I only got to visit Pontypridd when I started doing research for the book and was beginning to learn about the town. I’ve only really scratched the surface. There are a lot of things I’ve yet to discover about the place. But I know it’s a place I’ll keep going back to, not just because of Dad, but because it feels like a place that’s part of a Welshness that all of us carry.”
‘Stalwart’
While players like Alan Jones, Eifion Jones, Don Shepherd et al have long since been considered county greats, it’s fair to say that Bernard Hedges has somewhat unfairly gone uncelebrated over the years. He stands seventh on the list of all-time leading run scorers for Glamorgan, scoring almost 18,000 runs during his career, including 1,000 runs every season between 1956 and 1963. In all, he played in 422 first-class matches.
He, too, became the county’s first one-day centurion in a match against Somerset in 1963, his 103 earning him the Man of the Match award. He was a consistent batsman over 17 years, creating memorable opening partnerships with Gilbert Parkhouse initially and then with Alan Jones. However, Stephen Hedges insists that his father wasn’t one who enjoyed the limelight.
“I’ve used the word stalwart and it’s a word who describes someone who’s always around but doesn’t always grab the limelight. It was probably in the nature of Dad’s career and his batting that he didn’t always stand out. You look at Alan’s [Jones] career and the thing that strikes you about his is, one the longevity – he played for 26 seasons, something like that – and two, is the magnitude of runs that he scored – 34,000 is phenomenal and it puts him up in an incredible league of first-class cricketers. Gilbert was one of a number of players who just had that something extra. Dad was an unsung hero and he would have been happy with that title.”
An unhappy ending
The 1965 was seemingly the beginning of the end for Bernard Hedges, however, and his career finally finished two years later. But his passion for cricket remained strong and he subsequently turned his attention to Ynysygerwn, one of the “second string” teams of the south Wales leagues at that time.
But as Stephen Hedges explains, “Ynysygerwn were not a fancied team in the Welsh leagues at that time. They were a second-string outfit for want of a better word. They were so pleased with the efforts he made with them that they made him an Honorary Life Member. My mum always told me he loved playing for them.”
Hall of Fame
As a result of his contribution to Pontypridd, to Rhondda Cynon Taf and to cricket in Wales, Bernard Hedges was inducted into the Rhondda Cynon Taf Hall of Fame in 2005 – “the last big day he had to celebrate his own sporting career,” says Stephen.
“Bleddyn Williams was there, Tom David was there. Tom told that lovely story about someone coming up to him saying that try the Barbarian try they scored against the All Blacks. He said, “What? The one we practiced?” I remember him talking about that. Jenny James was there. It was a lovely day and it really was coming home. The Hall of Fame is in a little sports centre, the Hawthorn sports centre which is literally 200 yards from where Dad lived in the 1930s so it couldn’t be better.”