Newer members of Edinburgh South will be completely unaware of the great debt owed by the former Mitre club to Norman Thomson, who died just after Christmas. But many past Mitre members and friends will be very sad to hear of his passing. A geography teacher, and textbook author, he taught at least one of our players at school.
Norman arrived at Inch Park in the mid-1980s, when his teenage son Neil began playing for us. He soon became well known, for he was the sort to lend a hand with anything which needed doing.
His cricket activity began at The Royal High School in wartime, and his handwriting has been found in their scorebooks from 1946 onwards. Neil Leitch, now Scotland scorer and archivist, tells us that the late Sandy Thorburn used to speak in glowing terms about Norman’s scoring in the 1950s, saying that he was well ahead of his time in the extra details his score sheets contained. He noted the fielding positions where catches were taken, and he recorded the direction of each boundary; thus he could produce run charts for batsmen who scored centuries. Norman’s scoring pinnacle was in 1956 when he scored for Scotland v Ireland at Raeburn Place.
With that background, Norman easily became the Mitre scorer, where his neatness and attention to detail were legendary, impressing many clubs we met on the circuit. Unasked, he would often reproduce a scorecard later to give to a player who had achieved an outstanding performance.
While scoring at Inch Park, Norman would boil the big urn in our less than palatial former abode, set out the tea, then clear up afterwards with limited help, as others headed for the pub. He wrote many match reports for the club newsletter, Mitre News’n’Views, which ran for well over 100 issues. He collected reports and articles from others as well, before typing everything and distributing the newsletter round the club. We often read amusing observations from Norman – for example, he identified the chief consumer of Jaffa Cakes, and disclosed the unlikely routes taken to away grounds by drivers. He was invariably well informed about the subsequent progress of former players, because he took great personal interest in all those he met.
Soon after he arrived, our then secretary left Edinburgh, so Norman assumed that post too, continuing until 2004. Pre-dating our club website, his quiet understated manner probably meant that the countless phone calls he made to help keep the show on the road went unthanked too often. Equally, his always beautiful script in our scorebooks was all too easy to take for granted, appearing as it did game after game. Somehow Norman was always a calm, positive influence, even when the occasional slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, inevitably experienced by our modest but energetic little club over time, passed close to his ears. Norman also edited, and prepared for printing, Mitre’s Golden Jubilee booklet in 2004 - while of course he still carried out all the duties of secretary.
Norman played for Royal High FP in the late 1950s and early sixties, captaining the 3rd eleven for a time. He also appeared for Mitre second and third teams on occasion, and he certainly stood in as captain of Mitre seconds at least once. When Mitre became Edinburgh South in 2006, Norman was appointed Honorary Vice President of the club. He retained a keen interest in various other sports, notably golf and rugby, despite indifferent health latterly.
Norman Thomson was a very good friend of Mitre, and he will be warmly remembered by far more people than he would have thought possible.
GHD