But there was much more to him. Captured in the fall of Singapore, he spent several years as a prisoner of the Japanese on the notorious Burma-Siam railway - a savage experience during which he embraced a lifelong Christian faith. He was an outspoken critic of the cricket establishment's appeasement of apartheid South Africa. He seemed to know everyone among the great and the good, from prime ministers to governors-general, in every country he visited. He is even supposed to have watched the great W.G. Grace play - from his pram. A confirmed bachelor until the age of 50, he then enjoyed 40 years of happy marriage. Some thought him arrogant, even snobbish ( He is quite prepared , went the joke, to travel in the same car as his chauffeur ), but countless others, from young cricketers whom he encouraged to local people in his home county of Kent whom he helped in times of trouble, testified to his limitless generosity. For all his grandness and dignity, to everyone who knew him he was simply, Jim .