A Somerset author has just published a book entitled "And Hitler Stopped Play" which will transport readers back across the years to an age when cricket was a leisurely pursuit played in a gentlemanly spirit by all who took part in the game.

George Cooper, who has enjoyed a wide-ranging teaching career in Somerset, and is currently rugby coach at the Richard Huish College in Taunton, recounts the history of The Triflers Cricket Club, a team that flourished between the war years, and the involvement of the Browns and his own family the Coopers.

His family originally hailed from Lyminster, which is just inland from Littlehampton in Sussex where many of the matches that are recounted took place, although both families have very strong links with the West Country in general and Somerset in particular.

Through the annals of their cricketing antics George Cooper not only brings his family members to life, but also recaptures the atmosphere which prevailed in country house cricket in the 1930s, and which sadly has all but disappeared in many cases, often in the name of progress.

This is a book that will have mass appeal to both young and old alike. The author treats first-class cricketing heroes like Billy Griffiths and Hugh Bartlett, and other celebrities and politicians such as author Hugh De Selincourt, who all played at sometime for the Triflers CC, in the same way as he speaks of his family members.

Priced at £7.99, "And Hitler Stopped Play" is a lavishly illustrated paperback, which will doubtless be bought by a large number of cricket followers who will read it and find themselves dipping back into it over and over again - just as I did!

"And Hitler Stopped Play," by George Cooper is published by Vanguard Press (ISBN 1 903489 08 3) and is currently available from the Cricket Shop at the County Ground in Taunton.

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