signed by the author on the pre-title page with the inscription: "to Anne-Marie with best wishes, Jeremy Paul"; also, loosely inserted, is a handwritten & signed card from the author gifting the book to Anne-Marie (believed to be Anne-Marie Minhall - a presenter on Classic FM radio station). In 1933 A. G. Macdonell wrote a novel, England, Their England, which remains in print on the basis of a single chapter generally acknowledged to be the funniest account of a cricket match ever written - when a motley group of Londoners and one American, led by the incomparable Mr. Hedge, arrive in various states of dysfunction to play a village cricket team. The comic antics were based on real people - Mr. Hedge was poet, publisher and critic Sir John Squire - and a real team, the Invalids Cricket Club. This is the first book to tell their true story. Formed after the First World War by veterans returning wounded, invalided or otherwise, the Invalids featured novelists, actors, Test Match players, politicians, private detectives and even, when times demanded, women and boys. An Invalid stalwart for many years, Jeremy Paul has delved into the club archives and interviewed past and present players, to produce an entertaining overview of the progress of a club that has upheld the true traditions of amateur sportsmanship: 'playing hard in lovely rural surroundings and not giving a jot who wins'. He also takes a look at the current state of the village game and did a bit of crystal ball gazing in imagining a match in the year 2014.