From The Boundary’s Edge by Laurence Griffiths (Atlantic Publishing, £25) (From The Northern Echo)

Book Review: From The Boundary’s Edge by Laurence Griffiths (Atlantic Publishing, £25)

4:28pm Monday 12th December 2011 in Reviews By Tim Wellock

From The Boundary’s Edge by Laurence Griffiths (Atlantic Publishing, £25)

THE cricket ground at Raby Castle has been awarded pride of place on the front cover of a book of spectacular photographs.

Sports Photographer of the Year Laurence Griffiths has covered the country from Northumberland to Cornwall for this glorious celebration of village cricket. Other than the captions, the only writing in the 95 pages is a foreword by David Lloyd.

Sadly, the cost of £25 will be prohibitive to many, which is a shame as most of these wonderful pictures deserve to be widely appreciated.

The front cover photo – see right – is taken from beneath a tree, framing the shot with branches and leaves above and the tree’s shadow in the foreground. The cricketing action in the middle has the castle as a magnificent backdrop.

On page 30 is a black and white preseason shot taken from roughly the same spot with the leaves just starting to appear and the groundsman mowing the square. The light roller is balanced by a watery sun peeping through the branches. It is a deeply evocative shot, guaranteed to awaken dreams of summer days.

Some of the photos will be a little too arty for some tastes, taken through a five-barred gate or a gap in the sightscreen.

There is a picture of cricket taking place at Bamburgh taken over the top of a sand dune which fills more than half of the foreground. How could anyone take a picture here which does not show the castle? But don’t despair, it appears twice later in the book on opposing pages, the second one featuring beach cricket.

There’s more beach cricket from Fife in Scotland, with a heavy emphasis on the lowering skies, while for sheer scenic beauty the Lake District grounds of Ambleside, Keswick and Coniston vie with Lynton and Lynmouth in Devon.

Pictures of tea ladies, flat-capped spectators, tractors and rickety scoreboards complete the tapestry of quintessentially English summer scenes.