Stephen Chalke

Stephen Chalke (born 1948 in Salisbury, Wiltshire) is an English author and publisher. In an article in the 2010 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack he is identified as "an author, publisher and captain of the Winsley Third XI".[1]

For the Baptist minister and social activist, see Steve Chalke.

He has two undergraduate degrees – one in Drama, English and Philosophy, the other in Mathematics – and a postgraduate degree in English Literature. He has taught in adult, further and higher education, but since the late 1990s he has increasingly concentrated on writing and publishing. He works for the Open University.

Chalke's cricket-writing career began after he received some bowling coaching from the former Somerset player Ken Biddulph in the early 1990s. He wrote down some of Biddulph's reminiscences, then interviewed other players from the 1950s and collected their cricket memories into his first book, Runs in the Memory. None of the publishers he approached thought the book was commercially viable, so he formed his own publishing firm, Fairfield Books, and published it himself.[2]

Through Fairfield Books, Chalke has written and published several highly acclaimed biographical and historical cricket books. His collaboration with the late Geoffrey Howard, At the Heart of English Cricket, won the 2002 Cricket Society Book of the Year Award, and he has twice won the Wisden Book of the Year award: in 2004 with No Coward Soul (his biography of Bob Appleyard, co-written with Derek Hodgson) and in 2008 with Tom Cartwright - The Flame Still Burns. In 2009 he won the National Sporting Club's Cricket Book of the Year with The Way It Was - Glimpses of English Cricket's Past, a collection of more than 100 articles written for The Wisden Cricketer, Wisden Cricket Monthly and The Times. The Way It Was won the 'Best Cricket Book' category of the 2009 British Sports Book Awards.[3] In the 2010 edition of Wisden, he contributed a 10-page article on English cricket and the Second World War.[4]

The Cricket Society awarded him the inaugural Ian Jackson Award for distinguished service to cricket in 2009.[5] The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians named him Statistician of the Year for 2015 for his contributions to the field of cricket history.[6]

Chalke retired from Fairfield Books at the end of 2019 having run it more than 20 years. During that time Fairfield produced 40 books, of which Chalke wrote 17.[7] Other authors include David Foot, John Barclay, Peter Walker, Mark Wagh and Simon Lister.[8]

Publications
  • Runs in the Memory: County Cricket in the 1950s (1997, ISBN 0-95311-960-2) Ken Taylor (Illustrator), Frank Keating's "Guardian Book of the Year"[9]
  • Caught in the Memory: County Cricket in the 1960s (1999, ISBN 0-95311-961-0) Ken Taylor (Illustrator)
  • One More Run (2000, ISBN 0-95311-962-9) (with Bryan "Bomber" Wells)
  • At the Heart of English Cricket: The Life and Memories of Geoffrey Howard (2001, ISBN 0-95311-964-5) (with Geoffrey Howard), Winner of the Cricket Society Book of the Year
  • Guess My Story: The Life and Opinions of Keith Andrew, Cricketer (2003, ISBN 0-95311-968-8)
  • No Coward Soul: The Remarkable Story of Bob Appleyard (2003) (with Derek Hodgson),[10] Winner of the Wisden Book of the Year
    • 2nd Revised edition (2008, ISBN 0-95448-869-5)
  • Ken Taylor: Drawn to Sport (2006, ISBN 0-95448-862-8)
  • A Summer of Plenty: George Herbert Hirst in the Summer of 1906 (2006, ISBN 0-95448-865-2)
  • Tom Cartwright: The Flame Still Burns (2007, ISBN 0-95448-866-0), Winner of the Wisden Book of the Year
  • Five Five Five: Holmes and Sutcliffe in 1932 (2007, ISBN 0-95448-868-7)
  • The Way It Was: Glimpses of English Cricket's Past (2008, ISBN 0-95607-021-3), Winner of the National Sporting Club Cricket Book of the Year
    • 2nd edition, illustrated, revised (2011, ISBN 0-95685-111-8)
  • Now I'm 62: The Diary of an Ageing Cricketer (a novel) (2010, ISBN 0-95607-028-0)
  • A Long Half Hour: Six Cricketers Remembered (on Arthur Milton, Geoff Edrich, Bomber Wells, Dickie Dodds, Ken Biddulph and Eric Hill) (2010, ISBN 0-95607-026-4)
  • Micky Stewart and the Changing Face of Cricket (2012, ISBN 0-95685-112-6)
  • Gentlemen, Gypsies and Jesters: The Wonderful World of Wandering Cricket (2013) (with Anthony Gibson), proceeds to Chance to Shine cricket charity[11]
  • Summer's Crown: The Story of Cricket's County Championship (2015, ISBN 0-95685-115-0)
  • Team Mates (2016, ISBN 0-95685-117-7) (Edited with John Barclay)[12]
  • In Sunshine and in Shadow (2017, ISBN 0-95685-119-3), the authorised biography of the former Yorkshire and England offspinner Geoff Cope[13]
  • Through the Remembered Gate (2019, ISBN 9781999655891), the story of Fairfield Books
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References
  1. "How English cricket survived the Second World War". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2010 ed.). Wisden. p. 61.
  2. Stephen Chalke, A Long Half Hour: Six Cricketers Remembered, Fairfield Books, Bath, 2010, pp. 9–29.
  3. "Previous winners". British Sports Book Awards. Retrieved March 29, 2020.
  4. "How English cricket survived the Second World War". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2010 ed.). Wisden. pp. 52–61.
  5. "Ian Jackson Award Winners". The Cricket Society. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  6. "Statistician of the Year 2015 – Stephen Chalke". ACS. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
  7. George Dobell (May 31, 2019). "The many lives of Fred Rumsey". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
  8. "Authors". Fairfield Books. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  9. Sengupta, Arunabha (June 6, 2017). "Interview: Stephen Chalke — A long half-hour with the prolific and award-winning cricket writer". Cricket Country. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
  10. Searby, Martin (November 28, 2003). "Appleyard: An untold story of private grief". The Telegraph. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
  11. "Gentlemen, Gypsies and Jesters order form" (PDF). Buccaneers Cricket Club. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
  12. "John Barclay: Publications". Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
  13. Hopps, David (August 26, 2017). "The offie who coped". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved August 28, 2017.
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