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Your humble correspondent’s column last week about the holy relics of Australian sport – Bradman’s bat, Phar Lap’s hide, Cathy Freeman’s bodysuit and torch etc – prompted a reader to write in:
“One of the rarest pieces of Australian sports memorabilia (and saddest stories) would be a blazer belonging to Archie Jackson which hangs in the school hall at Normanhurst Boys High. Very few of the students would have any idea of who he was, the rest of us can just wonder what he could have been.”
I know. Me too.
Archie Jackson? It rang a distant bell, but no more than that. But digging a bit, I remembered a story written by former NSW cricketer, author, commentator and man about town Neil Marks, in his book, Tales From the Sports Field: The Best of Neil Marks.
Archie Jackson in 1930.Credit: Archive
The story was indeed about the cricketer Archie Jackson, who was a contemporary and teammate of both Donald Bradman and Neil’s father Alexander “Acka” Marks. Together, Bradman and Jackson were the rising stars of NSW cricket in the latter part of the 1920s. Marks also roughly fitted that bill, making his debut for NSW at the age of 18, just after the other two, who had also made their debuts in their teens.
We all know the talents of Bradman, but Jackson was in his realms. The record shows Archibald Jackson made 164 on Test debut against England at the age of 19, and was regarded by many as having the natural batting talent of the late, great and still deeply mourned Victor Trumper – who died in the early days of the Great War aged 37.
As Neil Marks recounted the story in his book, one day at the SCG, NSW are playing South Australia in a Sheffield Shield match. After being in the field the whole day long, young Acka Marks is glad to hit the showers at stumps.
Coming out and drying himself with the towel he had grabbed from his mum’s closet that morning, he notices Archie rummaging in his kit, having forgotten his towel, and offers his mate his own damp one.
Gratefully, Jackson takes it, while Marks goes home to catch absolute hell from his mother.
Where is her best towel, the one kept for guests? Where is it?
Oh … gawd.
Archie has it.
The next day he goes back to the SCG to resume the match, to be greeted by Jackson who gives him – not the towel Marks had given him, but … a brand-new towel, still in its sleeve.
When Marks asks about his mother’s favourite towel, Jackson merely comments enigmatically, “the other towel is gone”, and walks away. It’s all a bit awkward, and all the more so when Marks takes the new towel to his mum that night. She is not pleased, as the new towel is not nearly as nice as the old one.
Alexander “Acka” Marks playing for NSW in 1936.
“I can’t understand Archie’s behaviour,” she tells her son, mystified. “He always seemed like such a nice boy.”
Things move on regardless, and Marks thinks little more about it, until a few years later during the Bodyline series, Jackson is in hospital after collapsing before a NSW match. He is suffering from … tuberculosis. (Known as the “white death,” the infectious disease that commonly attacks the lungs.)
A lot of the Australian and touring English players visit him in hospital, as does young Marks. But because Archie is so crook, Marks soon makes his excuses and is getting up to go when Jackson suddenly brings up the subject of the towel.
Oh, that? Don’t worry about it, Archie. Just rest.
But Archie insists.
Archie Jackson’s coffin is carried by cricketing legends including Donald Bradman.Credit: Archive
Back then, Archie realised tuberculosis had got to him, and he knew it was infectious, so had to be very careful. Thereafter, he never borrowed nor lent any clothing, right up until Marks lent him the towel which he had absentmindedly taken. It was only after towelling himself down he realised what he had done.
So Archie had gone first thing the next morning, before heading to the SCG, to a local store and bought a towel for Marks’ mother.
“The man behind the counter,” he tells Marks, “said that it was the best towel in the shop. I hope your mum liked it.”
“Archie,” Marks replies, “Mum said it was the best towel she ever owned.”
When Marks gets home, he takes out Archie’s towel from his mother’s closet, and buries his head in it, crying like a baby.
Jackson died a short time later, aged 23. His pall-bearers were Australian cricketing legends Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford, Stan McCabe, Vic Richardson, Bert Oldfield and Donald Bradman. His headstone was paid for by public subscription and reads simply: “He played the game”.
So yes, you lads at Normo Boys High. That is who Archie Jackson was. Treasure that blazer.
@Peter_Fitz
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