Alan Gibson
Alan Gibson | |
---|---|
Born | Norman Alan Stewart Gibson 28 May 1923 |
Died | 10 April 1997 | (aged 73)
Education | Taunton School |
Alma mater | The Queen's College, Oxford |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, writer, radio broadcaster |
Spouses | Olwen Thomas
(m. 1948, divorced)Rosemary King
(m. 1968, divorced) |
Children | 4 |
Norman Alan Stewart Gibson
Life and career
Alan Gibson was born at
Gibson was a member of the Liberal Party and served as President of the Falmouth and Camborne Liberal Association. He stood as parliamentary candidate for that constituency at the 1959 General election but came third.[3]
He was briefly a travelling lecturer with
He wrote on cricket at various times for
As a cricket commentator he was articulate and often drily humorous. On a Saturday afternoon sport programme, Neil Durden-Smith once mentioned that he had been having tea with the Bishop of Leicester. On being cued in, Gibson began his commentary stint with: "No episcopal visitations here."[4] His cricket writing for The Times was generally light-hearted, often concentrating more on his journey to the match (invariably by train, often changing at Didcot, rarely straightforward) than on the cricket itself.[8]
In his pieces he coined the descriptions "the Sage of
In 1975 he was chosen to give the address at the memorial service for Sir
Not a robust man, he had spells of depression, once spending some time in a psychiatric hospital. He also had a drink problem (which was the reason he was dropped from Test Match Special).
He married twice: to Olwen Thomas in 1948 and to Rosemary King in 1968. Both marriages produced two children and both ended in divorce.[6] He died at Taunton in Somerset.
Select bibliography
- Jackson's Year: The Test Matches of 1905, Sportsman Book Club, 1966.
- A Mingled Yarn, Collins, 1976. ISBN 0-00-216115-X(Autobiography)
- Growing Up With Cricket - Some Memories of a Sporting Education, George Allen & Unwin, 1985. ISBN 0-04-796099-X
- The Cricket Captains of England, The Pavilion Library, 1989. ISBN 1-85145-390-3(A revised edition, the original being published in 1979.)
- West Country Treasury: A Compendium of Lore and Literature, People and Places, Ex Libris Press, 1989, ISBN 0-948578-19-X(Co-authored with his son, Anthony Gibson)
- Of Didcot and the Demon: The Cricketing Times of Alan Gibson, Fairfield Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9560702-5-8(Compiled by his son, Anthony Gibson)
Notes
- ^ His obituary in The Independent gives his third name as "Stewart" as does IMDb, but both Wisden and Cricinfo give it as "Stanley".
- ISBN 000216115X.
- ^ The Times House of Commons, 1959
- ^ a b Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Ball by Ball: The Story of Cricket Broadcasting, 1990.
- ^ Gibson, A Mingled Yarn, pp. 129–47.
- ^ a b "Alan Gibson". IMDb. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ "Alan Gibson goes to commercial TV", Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, 9 September 1961
- ^ Obituary published in The Independent. Retrieved 26 September 2009.
- ^ Growing up with Cricket, p174.
- ^ Sir Neville Cardus, A Tribute Retrieved 15 Sep 2011
- ^ Cricket Writers' Club presidency Archived 12 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Obituary", Wisden 1998, p. 1431–32.
References
- Wisden obituary
- Another Wisden piece
- Cricinfo profile
- Gibson, Alan. Growing Up With Cricket - Some Memories of a Sporting Education, George Allen & Unwin, 1985. ISBN 0-04-796099-X