Sometimes, when I am sitting knee deep in old scorecards or surrounded by slightly tatty copies of the Kent Annual, the thought comes to me, “What am I trying to do?” Occasionally, the answer is that I am helping to sort out the collection that Kent CCC has acquired over the years, but more often it is quite simple – I am just enjoying memories of days gone by. In the long dark days of winter, we all like to remember sunnier days, when big scores were made, or wickets tumbled to Kent’s bowlers.

It’s human nature to remember things past – Marcel Proust wrote over 4,000 pages of pretty dull stuff about it, and all in French to make it worse, (much of it based around a madeleine cake, if I recall my days of A Level French). Our past is our comfort zone, so we all like to go back there whenever we can. The only thing is, is there any point to it? Does it do any good?

George Santayana and Marcel Proust – foreigners who knew nothing about cricket

The answer is, yes, but I would say that, wouldn’t I? After all, I’m involved in the Kent Cricket Heritage Trust and the clue is in the name. We care about heritage. But it’s true: many philosophers, historians and politicians have observed, usually by misquoting the Spanish philosopher, George Santayana, who said it first (presumably in Spanish) that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

Now you could argue that in Kent’s case, repeating the past would not necessarily be a bad thing. Let’s repeat the 70s and win a few trophies, or go back to the days of Lord Harris and Colin Blythe, and win the championship four times in eight seasons. “Oh my Cowdrey and my Woolley long ago”, as no poet wrote. But it is the job of the Heritage Trust to remember the past, to enjoy it and to let followers of Kent cricket know how today’s teams match up with those of the past. To do that we have to protect and preserve our collection, and most importantly, to let everybody who wants to, to see it and hear about it.

“Oh my Woolley and my Cowdrey (Colin – not Chris or Graham or Fabian) long ago”

The problem at present is that people don’t want to learn from the past, in cricket or in life. Every generation thinks it knows best, and imagines it is the first one ever to face the particular issues it is facing now. The ECB have no thought for the past. There is nobody within that organisation (I use the word loosely) who has any responsibility for cricket’s history and heritage, and almost every match is labelled ‘the greatest game ever’ or ‘the worst defeat ever’ or some other ridiculously under-researched statement. Which might be one of the reasons they make mistakes from time to time. One might say Hundreds of times.

When in 2018 Sean Dickson and Joe Denly made their record-breaking stand at Beckenham, the record they beat had been held by Aravinda de Silva and Graham Cowdrey. When this was announced on the ground, one young lad (probably no more than eight or nine years old, so he could be forgiven) said, “Is Graham Cowdrey any relation of Fabian?” Never mind Colin or Chris, the yardstick for this young boy was Fabian Cowdrey. The present becomes the past very quickly indeed.

So what should the Heritage Trust be doing? First of all, we have to make sure that the collection which has grown over the past 150 years into an important part of the history of the county of Kent, never mind just its cricket fields, is looked after, catalogued and built up in a way that allows us to tell the story of cricket in Kent. That involves a great deal of painstaking work in checking the state of every item, making sure that it is catalogued in a way that tells us what the item is, who gave it to us and where it is kept. It involves protecting them so that their condition does not deteriorate over the years, which in turn means acid-free folders for paperwork, dust-proof cabinets for larger items, and storage places which are heat, light and humidity controlled.

We wish!

The problem with Canterbury is that there is nowhere on the St. Lawrence ground where such facilities exist, or even could exist unless we win the lottery. It is not impossible, though. The quality of the MCC Museum at Lord’s is probably beyond our reach, but we can look at what Gloucestershire or Sussex have done and aspire to a small heritage centre like theirs.

We also want to get out and about more. We want to involve schools in learning about, for example, the social history of Kent through cricket, and the great landowners who supported it over two centuries ago; we want to talk to people whose memories go back a long way, so that we can save those first-hand reminiscences for the future; and we want to create books and films about Kent cricket to make sure our past is not forgotten.

The point of Kent’s collection is not the items themselves. We are not hoarders who collect for the sake of collecting. The point of Kent’s collection is the stories that it tells, the great events that it reminds us of and the personalities it evokes. We are getting better at helping our memorabilia do this, and one day our skills might even match our enthusiasm, but in the meantime we continue to believe that the point of the past is to be a roadmap to the future. Without acknowledging and learning from our past, we are going nowhere.

We always need volunteers for KCHT – if you’d like to become involved, contact the county club and ask for the Hon. Curator, Caroline Ellis. Or else write a comment at the end of this blog.