Obituary Brian Pattinson
Last updated 19:31, Friday, 28 November 2008
THE groundsman whose lovingly-tended pitch won the accolade of Britain’s Loveliest Cricket Ground has died from cancer at the age of 65.
Brian Pattinson, who was Keswick Cricket Club’s groundsman and scorer, was one of the best-known personalities in Cumbrian sporting circles.
He played for the Keswick club in his younger days, once taking nine wickets in an innings in a match against Cleator.
But he was best known as head groundsman at Fitz Park and the keeper of detailed records as the scorer for the first XI.
He kept score in 550 consecutive matches before having to give up due to ill health, but he was still managing to write the scores for most of Keswick’s games last season, being one of the first scorers in the county to adopt a laptop computer alongside the traditional book.
He spent every spare hour tending the ground which was chosen as the UK’s loveliest by cricket ‘bible’ Wisden in 2001.
Mr Pattinson was born in a house at Millbank, overlooking the cricket ground, and his family lived at High Hill in Keswick before moving to the Pheasant Inn in Crosthwaite Road.
His father Joe was landlord at the Pheasant and Brian went to Keswick School and then Battersea College of Technology in London, studying hotel and catering management.
He came back to the Lake District in 1964 and the family moved to the King’s Head at Thirlspot where Brian helped to run the hotel.
He and his wife Margaret lived at Threlkeld for a time until Brian went to live with his retired parents Joe and Doris in Keswick, caring for them until their deaths.
He is survived by a son Joseph, and brother and sister John and Brenda.
His funeral took place at Crosthwaite Church in Keswick.
