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In this episode we speak to Professor Mike Wilson of Loughborough University about his work in the area of oral history and the two cricketing projects with which he was associated, Tale-Enders and Taking the field. Mike is currently Professor of Drama and Head of Creative Arts at Loughborough.

Tale-Enders was a project he was involved with alongside Andrew Hignell of the Museum of Welsh Cricket and coincided with plans for the new stadium at Sophia Gardens in the run up to the Ashes series of 2009. At that time, Mike was Head of Research at the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Glamorgan which is now the University of South Wales in Pontypridd. Mike describes the origins of the project, his memories of working on it and some of the stories about welsh cricket clubs it uncovered.

Taking the Field was a project inspired by the Tale Enders Project and was organised under the auspices of the MCC. It expanded on the concepts explored by Tale Enders and, as it happened, assisted members of Blaina Cricket Club tell the story of their club.

In addition to talking about these projects, Mike tells us about his academic journey, his discovery of oral history and one or two of the key figures that have informed his development as someone interested in the power of stories for exploring history.

For those interested in Tale Enders, you can find the Flickr page which was used by the project by clicking on the link below. Be prepared to see some famous English cricketers as well as members of the Glamorgan CCC Team from days gone by. In addition, there are many photos taken of club grounds and club and country cricket in Wales from the early 20th century. Unfortunately, the photos are not labelled but the experience of looking at them is no less enjoyable for that:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tale-enders/

For those interested in the Taking the Field project there will be a follow up episode of the podcast featuring original audio recordings from the project with members of Blaina Cricket Club as well as an interview with Project Worker Emma Peplow and member of Blaina CC, Alan Williams.

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We begin this episode of the podcast by talking about Ossie's best first class bowling figures, quickly moving on to his nickname.

We talk about the nature of County cricket in the era that Ossie played including the extensive travelling that players had to undertake during a first class season.

Tony Lewis was heir apparent to the captaincy. Ossie talks about him before we launch into his memories of the 1969 Championship winning season. As well as his exploits Ossie provides us with a pen picture of the 13 man squad that brought the trophy back to Wales for the second time.

Ossie felt the record he held at Cambridge University, taking 80 wickets in a season was one of his outstanding achievements. He then talks about some of his memories of the period in which he played including PeterMay, Fred Trueman, Brian Statham and Frank Tyson. Ossie talks with pride about his economy rate in first class cricket and how, for him, putting pressure on batsmen is a key element to bowling which he feels has been taken out of the modern game.

We talk about what he regards as his best performance on a cricket field and the performances of others that made an impact on him. Ossie talks about the changes in cricket equipment that have impacted on the game.

He finishes with his final reflections on his playing career and the nature of the professional game.

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We talk to Ossie Wheatley of Cambridge University, Warwickshire and Glamorgan. He won a Blue for cricket at Cambridge University in 1957 and in 1958 when he amassed a record 80 wickets for the University. After coming down he had a brief but succesful career with Warwickshire for whom he took 110 wickets in 1960. In 1961 he was appointed captain of Glamorgan CCC as a replacement for the retiring Wilf Wooller and over the next few years he developed a wonderful bowling partnership with Jeff Jones.

His fast medium bowling added a new dimension to the Glamorgan attack and in 1968 he took 82 wickets at just 12 a piece. He was named as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year in 1969.

In this episode he talks about his early life, his cricketing development at school and then University, his move to Glamorgan in 1961, the club's development in the early years of his captaincy and the wonderful victory over the touring Australians in 1964.

You can read the text of a wonderful interview between Ossie and Richard Bentley of the St Helen's Balconiers about that game here:

http://www.thebalconiers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/%E2%80%98Ossie%E2%80%99s-Tamed-the-Aussies%E2%80%99-Balconiers-Ossie-Wheatley-article.pdf