Arthur Reginald (Rex) ALSTON [4633]

  General Notes:

Arthur Reginald (Rex) was educated at Clare Cambridge, an athletics Blue for his house (100 yds), then went teaching. He had a distinguished career in sport and broadcasting. Rex was present at the death of his father 20 Feb 1954, his address is given then as 58 Smitham Bottom Lane Purley Surrey.

1939 Register
4 Putnoe Lane , Bedford M.B., Bedfordshire, England
Arthur R Alston 02 Jul 1901 MarriedSchoolmaster
Elspeth Alston 01 Sep 1911 Married Unpaid Domestic Duties.

ALSTON, (Arthur) Rex (1901-1994) Who's Who-1989
Freelance broadcaster and journalist with The Daily Telegraph, retired 1988; BBC Commentator, 1943-61, retired; b 2 July 1901 ; e s of late Arthur Fawssett Alston, Suffragan Bishop of Middleton, and late Mary Isabel Alston; m 1st, 1932, Elspeth (d 1985), d of late Sir Stewart Stockman and Lady Stockman; one s one d; m 2nd, 1986. Joan, widow of T. C. A. Wilson, dental surgeon. Educ Trent College; Clare College, Cambridge. Assistant Master, Bedford School, 1924-41. Joined BBC, Jan. 1942. Publications: Taking the Air, 1950; Over to Rex Alston, 1953; Test Commentary, 1956; Watching Cricket,1962. Recreations: golf, gardening. Address: Garlands, Ewhurst, Cranleigh, Surrey GU6 7QA. T: Cranleigh 277315. Clubs: East India, Devonshore, Sports & Public Schools, MCC.

The Times 19 October 1985 pg 10 col G.
REX ALSTON.
John Woodcock writes:
Rex Alston who has died at the age of 84, was a sports commentator with a pleasant courteous style and versatility seldom seen today. A useful sportsman himself he won an athletics blue at Cambridge, played rugby on the wing for Bedford and Rosslyn Park, and captained Bedfordshire at cricket - he taught for 17 years at Bedford School, where he had been as a boy, before joining the BBC in 1942.
After the end of the war he soon became an one of England's best-known radio voices, with a nice tone and no forced crescendos. He seemed as much at ease at Lord's and Wimbledon in the summer as that Twickenham and the White City (for the athletics) at other times of the year. After retiring from the staff of the BBC at the age of 60, he continued as a freelance commentator defying the years I invariably looking and sounding much younger than he was, and became a regular contributor to the sporting column is of The Daily Telegraph.

The Times 21 October 1985 pg 14 Col H.
Mr Rex Alston.
Saturday's edition of The Times incorrectly printed a report of the death of Mr Rex Alston. We are happy to say that Mr Alston is in good health and offer our apologies to him, his family and his friends for any distress that may have been caused.

DAILY TELEGRAPH
Tuesday July 2nd 1991:
TRUE GENTLEMAN MOVES INTO THE NINETIES:
There is no better phrase for it. Rex Alston, 90 years-old today, is one of nature's gentleman. It is an expression used , perhaps rather more often than is should be. It was heard, for example, when a grieving widow recently gave a vicar of my acquaintance a cup of tea and sought, through him, to justify her desceaced husband's life by saying: "He never even kicked the cat." I cannot believe Rex has ever been anything but polite to cats, or to anything or anyone else.
Immobilised only by rheumasism in his knees, the legacy of a notable sporting career, he remains otherwise as bright and mentally alert as he was in giving his precis, lucid commentaries on cricket, athletics, rugby and lawn tennis for the BBC. It is quite a testament to his impact on radio broadcasting that he should remain such a familiar name, and voice, exactly 30-years after his retirement. He was still spry, spritely and sharp, in the best sense, at a party given for him on Sunday by his devoted wife. Thereby hangs a happy tale.
Rex had seen his first wife, Elspeth, die after a long decline induced by Alzheimer's disease when he was rescued from a lonely old age by Joan. Together they survived the unusual experience of reading his obituary in THE TIMES, one of those journalistic aberrations which occur from time to time even in the best run offices. Forbearing to quote Mark Twain, the story, apocryphal I fear, is that he rang the newspaper and asked to be put through to the obituaries' editor. Eventually connected, he pronounced in a voice still clear as a bell: "This is Rex Alston speaking. Would you kindly explain why you have published news of my death this morning, and an obituary, albeit a very generous one?" There was a long pause at the other end of the line before as ashen-faced editor replied:" Where are you speaking from?"
This unfortunate experience apart, Rex has, in effect, had at least four lives, as schoolboy, schoolmaster, commentator and journalist. He was a fine all-round games player at Trent College during the l914-18 war and just after it at Cambridge for whom he ran in the hundred yards alongside the great Harold Abrahams. While a master at Bedford School he played cricket for Bedfordshire and captained the East Midlands as a pacey wing-three-quarter. Early in the l939-45 war he was told that he could not, at the age of 40, join up, being in what was called a "reserved occupation".
He was persuaded by the musician Leslie Woodgate to join the BBC as a billeting officer and once his "nice, clear voice" was recognised, one thing soon led to another. His first commentary test was at a wartime match at Headingley and he was first let loose on the air soon afterwards at Abbeydale Park in Sheffield. "There was no luxury like a scorer or a commentary box," he remembers. Graduating to a job in outside broadcasts, he was "No 2" (assistant) to Stewart McPherson on V E night and he stood in for Howard Marshall, the established voice of cricket, in the victory Test at Old Trafford. For 15 years after the war he continued to be at the heart of BBC radio's sporting coverage, at first in days when television was very much the junior partner. He organised the cricket commentaries, as well as participating in them and covered five Olympic Games, starting at London in 1948. I recall one of the old BBC engineers telling me what a charming man he always was to work with and I had cause to be grateful for his courtesy and friendliness when given my own first commentray test at the Oval under his kindly supervision. Once having settled me in front of a microphone, with the tape recorder in motion, he tactfully withdrew so that I would not feel inhibited.
There were a few cameras clicking on Sunday, although I do not know whether anyone actually said to Rex, as they did to Sir Winston Churchill after taking a photograph of him in his 90th birthday,"I hope to be taking another one of you when you are 100, Sir." Churchill replied:"I think there's every chance, young man. You look quite fit enough." Written by Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

When a Rex Alston was in hospital in 1985, The Times published his obituary prematurely.
When, at the age of 93, he died last week, The Times got his obituary wrong again. They called him the BBC's voice of tennis.
Alston did many things for BBC Radio but tennis was not his first sport. Athletics and cricket were the ones he excelled in, and E. W. Swanton will know how much he meant to cricket on radio.
I travelled with him to Melbourne for the 1956 Olympics, the Games that were boycotted by television because of a dispute with the International Olympic Committee.
Alston was the home audiences only link with the events in Melbourne. Great Britain won only one track medal, Christopher Brasher's 3000 meters steeplechase. Alston called the race absolutely correctly and though Brasher was disqualified temporarily, Alston was adamant that he had won his race honourably. And that's how it turned out. Alston was a commentator of the old BBC school, in enormously likeable and always a joy to meet. The last time I saw him was at Westminster Abbey for Brian Johnston's memorial service. Alston would not get that type of sendoff, but he earned a deserved the thanks and affection of all who heard him.
Paul Fox On Television Sport.

Rex Alston, who has died aged 93, was a household name in sports broadcasting during the two decades after the Second World War.
He seemed equally at home describing cricket at Lord's, Rugby football at Twickenham, lawn tennis at Wimbledon or athletics at the White City.
In each of these roles Alston came across as a precise, conscientious, fair-minded commentator, aspiring to no heights of imagery, but concerned to convey to the listener a clear and accurate picture.
His voice and style were as far as possible removed from the Hampshire burr and imaginative word pictures of an Arlott or the jokey pleasantries of a Johnston; and for some his stints on the air made and agreeable contrast.
On three of his four subjects, Alston had the advantage of speaking from first-hand knowledge. At cricket he was a Cambridge Crusader, before playing six seasons for Bedfordshire, whom he captained in the Minor Counties Championship in 1932.
He paid Rugby football on the wing for Bedford, East Midlands and Rosslyn Park, and he gained an athletics half blue, running second in the hundred yards to Harold Abrahams in the University sports, and helping Oxford and Cambridge to beat Harvard and Yale at Wembley in 1923.
There is no record of Alston achieving any notable skill in tennis, but for many years he did a capable job in the Wimbledon Championships beside Max Robertson and Dan Maskell.
Alston covered four Olympic Games for the BBC - from London in 1948 to Tokyo in 1964 - generally in partnership with Abrahams. His most memorable broadcast was of the great race in the Commonwealth Games between Roger Bannister and the Australian John Landy, who were then the only man to have broken the four minute barrier.
All who listened will recall Alston crying "He can't do it" as Landy led around the last been - to be followed as Bannister swept past with that wonderful finishing burst, with "He's done it".
The son of the Rt Rev A. F. Alston Suffragen Bishop of Middleton, Arthur Reginald Alston was born on July 2, 1901 and educated at Trent and Clare College Cambridge. He began as an assistant master at Bedford where he ran the cricket. In 1941 after being rejected for call up on grounds of age (he was then 40) he was persuaded by the musician Leslie Woodgate to join the BBC as a billeting officer.
At the end of the Second World War S. J. "Lobby" de Lotbinere, the head of Outside Broadcasts, appointed Alston to "a job which was heaven sent for me". He was put in charge of the outside broadcasting of the four sports with which he became identified.
Except when Wimbledon or athletics claimed his attention Arlott, Alston and The Daily Telegraph's own E. W. Swanton were the resident Test Match broadcasters in the early post-war years. Alston commentated on more than a hundred Tests, including those when he toured Australia, West Indies and South Africa as the BBC representative. He covered nearly as many rugby internationals.
He had an unnerving experience in Trinidad when a riot caused play to be suspended. Believing Alston guilty of an insensitive remark, the crowd hurled bottles at the commentary box until the police intervened.
Alston's years as a schoolmaster made him a rare stickler for accuracy. He would hurriedly corrected himself even when there was little chance of the listener being able to spot, say, a case of mistaken identity in the field.
Once towards the end of his time he got into a muddle amusing to everyone other than himself. There was a Pakistani player whose name, Afaq Hussain made commentators understandably nervous.
According to Brian Johnston's version Alston announced; "There's going to be a change of bowling. We are going to see Afaq to Knight at the Pavilion end." Whereupon Alston held his head in his hands and said "What am I saying? He isn't even playing".
Alston reached retirement age in 1961, but continued to broadcast long after that as a freelance. He also reported on cricket and rugby for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. He published "Taking the Air" (1950), "Over to Rex Alston" (1953), "Test Commentary" (1956), and "Watching Cricket" (1962).
In 1985 - by one of those unhappy mischances that are the obituarist's nightmare - the Times managed to publish his obituary notice. Alston complained that it was not only premature but incomplete.
Alston's first wife, Elspeth, daughter of Sir Stewart Stockman, had died earlier that year. In 1986 the Times was given the opportunity to reassure Alston's admirers by publishing the news of his second marriage to Joan Wilson.
Alston, still trim of figure and with his present light voice unchanged, continued to report games until the mid-1980s. He gave as his secret the fact that he washed daily in a cold bath!

A memorial service was held yesterday at St Bride's Fleet Street, for Rex Alston, who contributed Cricket reports for The Daily Telegraph long after his retirement from the BBC. He died aged 93, on September 8. The following poem, by former BBC colleague Max Robertson, was read at the service:
Oh Rex, Radiothesaurus
Of sporting terms and strife,
We sing to thee,
Since sad are we
That you have left this life.

But there are traces yet of you
In records of your voice,
Imprints sublime
Set for all time,
A track and varied choice.

Your innate aim was accuracy
To paint the actual scene;
Rugger cricket
That's the ticket -
As well as might have been.

Sometimes, of course, your instinct erred,
Produced a glorious fluff;
"Drobny now serves
But has no balls"
And all that sort of stuff.

Athletics was your other sport
A sprinter then you were
Your broadcasts ran
As fast as man
In tones supremely clear.

Oh Rex Radiothesaurus,
Blessed will be the day
When we contrive
That you revive
By vocal DNA.
Ref: The Daily Telegraph Sept 1994.

  Other Records

1. Rex Alston: Sportsman & Bon Vivant.

Arthur married Elspeth STOCKMAN [4640] [MRIN: 1598] on 7 Jan 1932 in England. (Elspeth STOCKMAN [4640] was born on 1 Sep 1911 in England. and died in 1985 in England..)

Arthur next married Joan WILSON [11367] [MRIN: 3802] in 1986.