Alston's middle name at birth was "Reginald", but he subsequently changed it to "Rex".Arthur Fawssett Alston, the third Bishop of Middleton.
Alston was a pupil at
Alston was a schoolmaster at
His first international cricket commentary was on the Old Trafford "Victory Test" in 1945, as a deputy for Howard Marshall. He quickly became an ever-present in a Test match commentary team which included John Arlott and E. W. Swanton, and also was the producer. He commented on about a hundred Tests in all, many of them after the launch of Test Match Special in 1957 expanded the coverage to include the full day's play rather than only portions of it. His last Test was in 1964.
Alston had the unsettling experience of reading his own obituary in The Times in 1985. A misunderstanding led to his obituary being published, instead of merely updated for the files. By an unfortunate coincidence, Alston had collapsed the previous evening at a dinner, and was a patient at the Westminster Hospital at the time. Next year he remarried, and so became almost certainly the only man to have his death and marriage reported in The Times in that order.
Alston wrote a number of books, including: