Don Borland on how the paper helped him recover from TB, plus letters from Peter Bird, Elizabeth Jurd, Elizabeth Monger, Graham Head, John Boyle, Andrew Dean, Chas Ball, Tony Meacock, Janet Hulme and Robert Daws
In 1953, at the age of 16, I caught tuberculosis. I was in a sanatorium for 18 months. Antibiotics were new and bed rest and lots of fresh air were de rigueur. So I passed the summer of 1953 in a two-bed cubicle in the company of a 17-year-old mate, open to the lawn and trees before us, the stable doors closed only partially if the wind drove in the rain too fiercely.
That was the year that England regained the Ashes lost before the war, notable for, among several other epics, Willie Watson’s and Trevor Bailey’s rearguard day at Lord’s that kept England in the hunt so that the series could be won at the Oval. It was all echoed in 2005.
