Test Match Special's Brian Johnston won the Military Cross (MC) during World War Two. In 1939 he joined the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, and served as Transport Officer and later Technical Adjutant. He went on to fight in Normandy, witnessed the liberation of a concentration camp and was awarded the MC for his bravery and leadership. During his service he also found time to organise cricket matches between the 1st and 2nd Battalions. Immediately after VE Day in 1945 he wrote an urgent letter to his mother from Germany, 'Could you send a parcel sometime containing: Wicket-keeping gloves, three cricket shirts, three pairs white socks...etc.' That summer he quickly organised cricket matches between the Guards Battalions at Siegburg and even taught the bemused Germans how to prepare a decent grass pitch! Brian Johnston later embarked on a highly successful broadcasting career. Known to millions of cricket fans around the world as 'Johnners', he was for many years the voice of cricket on BBC television and radio.
That is great the way he brought home to a foreign land. It reminds me when I was in the U. S. Navy and was on deployment in the Med. I asked my mother to send us some soil and grass seed. We had a miniature lawn the entire time. Everyone in my squadron came into the shop to see it and tend to it.
