Amateur pastimes provide fair entertainment when the alternative is staring at the wall or, worse, watching the news
If you know one thing about CB Fry, it’s that he was a man of many talents. He made a Test century against Australia, tied the world long-jump record, took a five-wicket haul at Lord’s, won a cap for England at right-back, started an FA Cup final for Southampton and played three games on the wing for the Barbarians.
His CV reads like a schoolboy’s daydream. But there is nothing in it quite so unlikely as his ability to make a standing leap on to a mantelpiece. Fry is the man who declined the throne of Albania and tried to forestall the war by teaching the Nazis to play cricket but, when all is said and done, that party trick was his pièce de résistance.
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